


Tug On My Dragon Heartstrings

by lordkristoffbjorgman



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Kristanna through the years, get ready for absolute fluff, kristoff is soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21789235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordkristoffbjorgman/pseuds/lordkristoffbjorgman
Summary: Kristanna Hogwarts AU. Each chapter is a one shot of them across the years.And it makes Kristoff realize he doesn’t need perfect timing or the perfect moment to ask her to the ball. These are the special moments he cherishes most with her. When they sit in front of the fire until two in the morning and they talk about everything or nothing at all and he still feels like her knows her better after each night. His heart races when he looks at her and they way she glows softly in the firelight and the full weight of how much he missed her hits him like a train.
Relationships: Anna & Kristoff (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 140





	1. First Year

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you for clicking on this fic! This is my first Kristanna fic and I'm really excited to work on this! I have exactly a month before I move to Europe for 4 months, and it is my personal goal to finish this fic before then, so please hold me to that! Any feedback is greatly appreciated, and you can find me on tumblr at lordkristoffbjorgman! Thanks again!

Kristoff is hyper aware of every moment leading up to his sorting ceremony.

He can hear the roar of laughter and the clinking of dishes in the Great Hall floating through walls of the castle. Combined with the buzz of excited chatter coming from the other first years mingling around him, it’s almost enough to make him forget about the bile rising in his throat. Yet the sound of blood rushing in his ears and the feel of his heart frantically pounding in his chest makes it nearly impossible for him to ignore the nervous dread churning in his stomach.

He feels so impossibly small, like he’s drowning in his slightly-too-big robes that the nice lady at Madam Malkin’s said he would grow into even though he’s “a bit short” for his age.

He feels young, like he’s five again and stepping foot into the orphanage for the first time, fingers clenched in the back of his social worker’s long coat and tripping on the heels of her shoes in his haste to keep up with her.

Only now he’s tripping over his robes and he can’t keep up with the group of first years hurrying away from him and the bile rises higher the further he falls behind until –

“Hey!” 

A high-pitched voice interrupts his stream of panic. Kristoff stumbles over his robes again and nearly falls flat on his face when a small pair of hands shoot out to steady him. It takes a moment, but his vision clears, and Kristoff’s eyes travel up and up pale fingers and robed arms until he settles on a short girl with fiery red pigtails and an upturned nose and a pair of cool blue eyes staring him down.

Kristoff opens and closes his mouth a few times, but finds his throat is dry all of a sudden. He stares directly into her eyes for a few moments, but the girl doesn’t say anything either, only squeezes her fingers where they stay circled around Kristoff’s bare wrists. It snaps him out of his daze, and he stumbles backwards, ripping his hands away from hers and shoving them into his robe pockets with eyes fixed resolutely on his feet so she doesn’t see the burning on his cheeks.

“Sorry, just checking you’re still with me,” she says sweetly, but it still manages to rub him the wrong way.

“What do you want?” He grumbles at her, returning the glare that’s found its way to her face.

Her demeanor changes and she put her hands on her hips, “You’re going to be late you know,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Don’t you think I know that?” He retorts, “and you didn’t even answer my question.”

Her jaw drops a little but she recovers quickly. “Okay well I _want_ to let you know that you’re going to be late to the sorting.”

“It’s not like I _want_ to be late!”

“Well then why are you all the way back here?”

“I wouldn’t still be if you hadn’t stopped me.”

“I didn’t _stop_ you.” The redhead scoffed and crossed her arms again, “I am _trying_ to help you. You looked lost,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders.

“Well I’m not, so now we’re both going to miss the sorting thanks to you,” Kristoff grumbles defensively, but when she rolls her eyes and huffs lightly it reminds him so much of the teenagers at the orphanage who always told Kristoff to ‘stop being so annoying’ that he immediately feels guilt bubble in his stomach, so with his eyes trained to the floor he softly adds, “I keep tripping over my robes and now I’ve just fallen behind.”

“Oh! Why didn’t you just say so!” She sounds so cheerful that Kristoff dares a glance upwards and finds her positively bouncing on the balls of her feet, face split open into a wide grin.

Instead of shooting daggers at him, her blue eyes are twinkling with excitement as she starts frantically searching through her robe pockets and sleeves for something. Kristoff feels taken aback, like he’s looking at a whole new person - one that is currently digging through her boots and mumbling to herself.

When she straightens up, she has a proud look on her face and a wand grasped in her right hand. Kristoff thinks of the reindeer core wand stashed in his back pocket right now and finds himself wondering what type of wand she has. He thinks maybe it would be a unicorn hair one like he had first tried in the cramped little wand shop that the nice Witch lady had first taken him too. He thinks something girly and pretty like unicorn hair would suit her, or maybe the dragon heartstring wand because her hair is so red and fiery and –

“Aha!” She startles him out of his wandering thoughts, “I can help you! My big sister Elsa – oh don’t let me forget to introduce you to her by the way – she taught me this spell because I used to wear her old robes around the house but they were way too long, so she’d always fix them for me!”

Kristoff blushes again at the thought of meeting her sister, he doesn’t even know this girl’s name, but the idea makes him feel pleasantly warm nonetheless. He doesn’t have much time to think about it though before the girl in front of him mumbles something and points her wand at his feet, and a gust of air knocks him off his feet.

Kristoff groans slightly at the pain in his back, and when he opens his eyes he thinks he might be seeing stars, but after a few blinks the red head’s sheepish smile comes into focus.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry I haven’t had much practice you know?” She offers him a hand and he takes it carefully, pulling himself to his feet in the process. “Are you okay? You fell kind of hard but – oh look! The spell actually worked!”

She points excitedly at his feet with her empty hand and all of a sudden he notices a gentler breeze around his ankles. When he looks down, he can actually see the tops of his shoes and he realizes that she managed to shorten his robes the perfect amount.

Kristoff gasps and looks back at the girl with his mouth wide open. “How did you do that?” He demands, “Can you teach me? All my other robes are the same length.”

“I just told you my sister taught me silly! Plus, you make make them long again when you grow! I can show you how after sorting!”

She smiles gently at the look of awe on his face and Kristoff is suddenly aware that the soft glow of candles lining the walls make her eyes twinkle and for the first time he sees that her flushed cheeks are smattered with freckles and he comes to the conclusion that she definitely does not look as stuck up as he first thought she did.

But then the twinkling stops and her eyes open wide and her hands start tugging at the double braids hanging from her head frantically. “Oh no, the sorting! We have to go!”

For the third time that night her hand shoots out and wraps tightly around his own, pulling him in the direction of the rest of the first years without another word. They sprint through the hallway, Kristoff following blindly behind her, but he thinks she somehow already know her way around this massive enchanted castle.

Now that Kristoff is no longer falling over himself, they catch up to the other first years just in time to watch the giant ornate doors to The Great Hall swing wide open. With their hands still clasped, the girl weaves and ducks them through the crowd of kids until they reach the very front, and Kristoff gasps a little at the sight in front of him.

He can’t believe that this, _magic_ , is his life now. It almost feels surreal thinking about where he was a month ago, and where he is now, standing in the midst of hundred of Witches and Wizards, floating candles and chandeliers, and possibly more food than he’s ever seen in his life. Also, he has a literal pet _owl_ now, and just thinking about Sven makes him smile even wider.

He doesn’t even realize he’s tuned out most of the introduction in favor of staring in awe before the Witch standing at the front of the hall begins calling names.

“Anna Arendelle!”

The red head spins around to face him, grinning widely again, “Oh oh that’s me! I gotta go, wish me luck!” But then she’s, dropping his hand before Kristoff has time to reply, and for a fleeting second he misses the warmth he hadn’t even realized was so comforting. She’s practically skipping towards the front of the room in excitement and launching herself onto the lone stool to be sorted. Kristoff thinks its amusing how she’s about to vibrate onto the floor, and he catches himself smiling at the thought.

He watches the Witch lower the hat onto the girl – Anna’s – head, and it barely touches her hair before a loud booming voice echoes throughout the hall.

“GRYFFINDOR!”

A table in the middle of The Great Hall erupts into applause, and Kristoff claps along with them. The Witch barely has time to pull the talking hat off Anna’s head before she takes off towards the table in a near sprint, and the cheering turns into laughter as they welcome the newest member of their house.

Only then does he realize that despite being surrounded by more people than he has ever been, standing under floating candles and a starry ceiling, Kristoff feels more alone than he has all night.

He stews in his anxiety for a few minutes, barely registering the sporadic bursts of applause after each sorting. After only a few more names though, he hears “Kristoff Bjorgman!” ring across The Great Hall, and his heart rate picks up a few beats as he slowly makes his way to the front of the room. His palms are sweating slightly by the time he reaches the extremely wobbly looking stool at the front of the hall, but he turns around and sits gently. When he looks up, he comes face to face with hundred of other students blinking expectantly at him while they wait for the Witch to place the hat upon his head. It feels like forever that Kristoff sits there buzzing nervously in his robes, but when she places the hat on his head he thinks he stops breathing, sitting as still as a statue waiting for the hat to shout his fate.

The sound of, “HUFFLEPUFF!” fills the hall, followed by roars of excitement from a table to his left. Kristoff jumps nimbly off the chair and trots over to the table on jelly legs, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the enthusiastic welcome, but pleased and blushing nonetheless.

Later, after the crowd of first year Hufflepuffs has finally stopped growing around him, the raucous cheering has died down, and the Headmaster has given a long speech that nearly put Kristoff to sleep, he realizes how warm he is, surrounded by complete strangers in a new home, when a month ago he didn’t even know magic existed. Everyone squeezed together tightly, laughing and chattering like old friends, and Kristoff can't believe the older students are actually interested in talking to him! He feels lighter than he has in years, despite gorging himself on more steak and kidney pie and black pudding and treacle tart than he could have ever imagined. Sure, he’s surrounded by strangers, but it’s nothing like how the orphanage felt when he first arrived.

He’s surprised how at ease he feels in this moment, and he looks around The Great Hall taking it all in, thinking that this feeling could never grow old. His eyes land on a pair of bright blue eyes already staring at him, and as he watches the warm smile grow across Anna’s face and returns her excited wave, Kristoff realizes that maybe not _everyone_ is a stranger after all.


	2. Second Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She really doesn’t deserve all the grumpiness and complaining and the ignoring on bad days when he just wants to hang out with Sven in his room and ignore the rest of the world. She always gives him the space he needs, never asking for more, but is always willing to give it on days like these. Kristoff makes a silent vow to himself that from this day on, he’ll be better for her, because she remembers all the mundane conversations and turns them into teaching moments that he’ll never forget.

Kristoff is utterly abysmal when it comes to potions.

It’s been five weeks and he still can’t make a functioning Pepperup Potion no matter how many times he’s tried. The third time Anna forced him to go to the infirmary because _literal fire_ was shooting out of his ears instead of steam, Nurse Gerda just gave him a withering look and stopped asking questions (after the fifth time, she handed him the entire jar of burn-healing paste and told him to stop wasting her time).

Everyone else is already working on perfecting their Sleeping Draughts and it frustrates Kristoff to no end that Professor Weselton keeps giving him detention hours to make up for all the lost time and scorch marks on the dungeon walls. He really doesn’t see why he needs the mandrake root needs to be sliced _exactly_ one centimeter thick, and why he has to let it boil for _exactly_ twenty seven minutes before adding the horn of bicorn. He wishes it were more like muggle cooking. He had learned to do a lot of that at the orphanage, but the unfortunate side effect was that now he tended to just throw potion ingredients in the cauldron and hope for the best.

Sometimes he can’t help but curse the fact that he was born with magic. Sure, his life is infinitely times better since he’s been living in the castle, and he would never trade his magic for the world, but life as a muggle is so much simpler and potions really _r_ _eally_ sucks sometimes.

He’s in the middle of lamenting this fact out loud to Anna when she interrupts his train of thought.

“Oh Kristoff stop whining! Just admit you can’t follow a recipe and accept the fact that you’ll be scraping cauldrons with Weselton for the rest of the year.”

She’s lying on her back in-between rows of books on the library floor, surrounded by a dozen opened history books that she’s charmed to turn the pages by themselves. The book that’s been precariously floating in the air above her drops as she loses her focus, and Anna gives a little frustrated _oof_ when it lands on her face. Her feet are kicked up against the shelf in front of her, and she pushes the book off her head and lazily turns onto her stomach and rolls her eyes in his general direction. She struggles to her feet and drapes herself dramatically over the desk Kristoff is writing and rewriting scrolls of Pepperup Potion recipes on in the hopes of memorizing it.

“Anna please, If don’t memorize this potion by the end of the term I’m never going to get out of that dungeon,” Kristoff complains, “and I think Weselton is out to torture me on purpose. Even if I never have to see another jig again it’ll still be too soon.”

Anna tries rolling her eyes at him again, but can’t hide the grin appearing on face at the same time. “If you had just done the summer reading like everyone else, maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult,” she teases.

“You _know_ I had to leave everything here over the summer, Anna.” Kristoff grumbles, “My foster parents this summer weren’t exactly the most inattentive I’ve ever had. I couldn’t risk them seeing the books.”

“You know there are charms for that right?”

“Well yes, but I haven’t had time to learn them yet because of this stupid potion.”

Standing in front of his desk now, Anna picks up the scroll he’s writing on and looks over it quickly before laying it back down and pointing to the middle of the page.

“You’re adding the nettles too late, see? They’re supposed to go before the mandrake, silly.”

Kristoff snatches the scroll up and glances over his work, “You’re joking right? Please tell me I haven’t been singeing my hair for the past five weeks because of _nettles_!” He frantically flips through the potions book next to him, and as soon as he scans over the correct page, Kristoff throws his head back and lets out a loud groan.

Anna giggles lightly at his dismay, hopping onto the desk and leaning in his direction. “If only you’d let me be your partner in class we wouldn’t be having this problem,” she sing songs to him.

“I don’t _need_ your help.”

“I never said you did, only that it might make things easier.”

“I’m doing just fine on my own.”

“Sure you are, Kris.”

“And besides, aren’t you partners with that that other Gryf girl?” His eyebrows furrow just thinking about how she stole Anna away from him on the first day of class.

“You mean Runa?” Anna giggles again, “All she does is talk my ears off about Quidditch boys. Honestly if you let me be your partner you would be doing _me_ a favor.”

Kristoff hesitates. It _would_ be nice to have some help, plus Anna is one of the best at potions among all the second years, he’s heard Weselton going on and on about her perfect Swelling Solution for weeks on end now. Plus never got to sit with her in class since she immediately became popular among all the other first year girls who wanted someone to gossip with. He’d had to settle with making faces at her across the dungeon when no one was looking. He _did_ miss her even though they ate dinner together all the time and spent hours on end in the library procrastinating essays and getting kicked out of the library for being too loud before Kristoff started getting detentions every other night.

She’s still sitting on his desk, waiting patiently and smiling expectantly at him, so cautiously he asks, “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not! Thank god, I’ve needed an excuse to get away from her for absolute ages!”

Satisfied that he’s given up fighting her, Anna grins and flings herself off the deck and back onto the floor in her pile of books. Kristoff returns to his scroll and sigh as he starts writing from the beginning again, carefully fixing his mistakes as he goes. In the background, Anna has returned to mumbling random facts to herself, which is a little quirk that always makes Kristoff smile.

He knows she’s making excuses to be his partner, but he’s grateful that Anna never makes him feel bad for asking for help. She knows how frustrated it makes him to feel even more inadequate compared to everyone else, when he already feels that way to begin with. From the very start she’s been by his side helping him when things get tough, and sometimes Kristoff wonders how he ever lived without her.

An hour later, when Kristoff finally rolls up the last bit of his potions scroll, he looks over at Anna, expecting to find her deep in concentration, with her tongue poking between her lips like she always does when she’s deep in concentration. Instead, she’s curled up into a little ball inside her robes, fast asleep on the floor, books strewn haphazardly around her. A little bit of drool escapes her open mouth, and it makes Kristoff chuckle even though he feels bad that she waited for him to finish all night.

Instead of waking her up right away, Kristoff quietly starts putting her books back, one by one. He hasn’t learned the banishing charm yet either, but he thinks that maybe Anna could teach him that too someday.

* * *

“Come on come on come on!” Anna giggles loudly as she pulls him by the hand into a dark empty classroom. “Stop being so slow Kristoff!”

He’s stumbling in behind her, still recovering from the shock of being ambushed outside of the Transfiguration classroom where he had been asking Professor Yelana if there was any way he could come to her office and learn the _Vera Verto_ spell he had missed a couple of months ago when he was still falling behind in Potions.

But before he could get an answer, Anna had come running up from behind with a, “ _Hi Professor Yelana! Bye Professor Yelana!”_ and a, _“Kristoff, follow me!”_ before she whisked him down the corridor.

Kristoff hears the door slam and the lock click behind him, feeling mildly like he’s just been kidnapped, but Anna’s let go of him and even though he can’t see her in the dark he still feels safe.

Still, Kristoff pulls the wand out of his back pocket and whispers, “ _Lumos!”_ and light floods the classroom.

In the middle, Anna is bouncing on the balls of her feet with an infectious grin on her face. As Kristoff's eyes adjust to the light, he sees that she’s surrounded by what must be hundreds of – ice sculptures?

“Anna what – “

“You wanted me to teach you the banishing spell right?” She bounces a little higher, “Well here you go!”

“Sure, but I don’t understand, what are – is this ice?”

“Yes!” Anna squeal in excitement, “Elsa’s been driving me crazy ever since she started studying for her OWLS, she’s basically turning everything she touches to ice because she’s struggling with this one spell, but its making me nuts every time she borrows something of mine and by the time I get it back it’s ice!”

“So you brought all of her ice here because…?”

“Okay hear me out, so I’m going to teach you the banishing spell, and we’re going to prank Elsa at the same time by banishing them all to her room so she sees how ice-crazy she’s gone.”

Kristoff wants to humor her, but he’s a little wary about the pranking part. “Are you sure Elsa’s not going to get mad?” He wants to say this in the nicest way possible, “She doesn’t really have the same…sense of humor that you do.”

“Oh, you worry too much Kristoff, besides, we’ll kill two birds with one stone!” Anna looks up thoughtfully for a moment and adds, “although, I don’t really like that saying because _why_ someone would want to kill two birds is beyond me - anyways, tada!”

Anna gestures at the sculptures around herself and she looks so very pleased with herself that suddenly Kristoff feels his cheeks burn and his eyes sting with the telltale sign of tears. He tries his best to tamp his feelings down, but Kristoff can’t help himself. He casually mentioned this to Anna _once_ about two whole months ago when he was finally coming out of his potions induced haze of studying, and he was only half serious about it at the time. Yet here she is, fully serious and ready to teach him a charm he honestly could have learned on his own had he taking the effort to sit down and do it. It’s times like these, where Anna somehow manages to continually surprise him with her memory and her generosity that Kristoff thanks whatever magical wizard god there may be for making her settle for him as a friend.

She really doesn’t deserve all the grumpiness and complaining and the ignoring on bad days when he just wants to hang out with Sven in his room and ignore the rest of the world. She always gives him the space he needs, never asking for more, but is always willing to give it on days like these. Kristoff makes a silent vow to himself that from this day on, he’ll be better for her, because she remembers all the mundane conversations and turns them into teaching moments that he’ll never forget.

So Kristoff grins and whispers, “ _Lumos Maxima!_ ” casting light to the rest of the room and much to Anna’s excitement says, “Okay teacher, where do we start?”

Later, after about fifty banishing attempts later, Kristoff has finally started to get the hang of it. He’s almost certain the ice is ending up in Elsa’s room, but he’s never been inside the Ravenclaw house so he can’t guarantee he has the location right.

When they decide to take a break a few minutes later, Anna starts congratulating him on picking up the spell so quickly, but Kristoff isn’t focused on her at all. Instead, he can here the faint familiar sound of a _very_ angry voice calling her name from outside of the room.

“Anna stop.”

“No really Kristoff, you need to learn to accept the complime – “ Anna’s speech is cut off when Kristoff rushes over and slaps a hand around her mouth. She wrestles him away with a little grunt and yells, “Hey!”

“Shh, Anna listen,” Kristoff urges her, “Do you hear what I hear?”

In the background, the sound of Elsa yelling in the corridor suddenly becomes a lot louder and clearer, “Everything is covered in ice! My bed and my closet are filled, Anna I swear to god when I find you I’m going to take so many points away from Gryffindor!”

Kristoff and Anna turn to look each other in the eyes, and after a split second they burst into laughter, and the sound of Elsa growing near fails horribly at sobering them up

In between heavy breaths Anna manages to squeak out, “Kristoff! The lights! The lights!”

She starts fumbling for her wand, but he reaches his own before she can. Through his laughter Kristoff manages to whisper, “ _Nox!”_ and they’re plunged into darkness.

He’s sure Anna’s giggling will give them away, but he still has an around her shoulder and they both fall to the floor in silent laughter, eyes watering and cheeks red and limbs tangled together and Kristoff can’t really bring himself to mind.

Besides, if they get detention together, Anna can teach him the summoning charm next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear Elsa is nice, she's just a little stressed about her owls :) I've got some some more fluff planned for chapter three, so I hope you guys are enjoying it so far. We'll probably get to some angst eventually, but just not yet cause they're literally like 12 years old. Let me know what you think!


	3. Third Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thinks of the Boggart and the image of Anna frozen into a million pieces on the floor and the desperation he felt in that moment, and he says to Anna softly, “I don’t know what I would without you either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you're seeing this again, I'm reposting cause I made some changes. oops:)

Third year comes and suddenly Kristoff doesn’t have nearly as much time for goofing off and pulling pranks as he used to. Divination is kicking his ass but Kristoff is determined not to fall behind this term. He’s done all the summer reading after learning to charm his magic books to look like muggle texts, and he’s drunken more tea in the past month than he has his entire life in hope of seeing something, _anything_ in the leaves.

Usually they just take on the appearance of Olaf, Anna’s scrappy looking cat, but Kristoff really doubts that has any particular meaning.

Either way, He is determined to get things right this year. Sure it’s just an elective, but he needs to do well in _something_ , and if that means staring into mirrors for hours on end or trying to interpret dreams that he only half remembers, then so be it. Whatever it means, Kristoff still needs to focus and cannot afford any distractions whatsoever.

Which is exactly when Anna comes barreling through his door.

“Kristoff I’m coming in so you better have clothes on because now I’m already in!”

The door slams loudly against his wall and Kristoff flails upright out of his position where he’s been hanging upside down off the end of his bed trying to conjure spirits in the mirror on his wardrobe.

“Bloody hell Anna!” Kristoff gets tangles in his sheets and tumbles to the floor at her feet. “What have we said about knocking?”

“Oh good, you’re robed,” Anna says simply. “And I knocked on the barrels outside the common room door. You taught me how to get in, remember?”

“And you never let me forget it, “Kristoff grumbles as he extracts himself up off the floor. He _is_ wearing clothes, thank you very much. He’s learned his lesson after having been barged in on while half dressed too many times before.

Her random appearances became so frequent at one point that Nils, Anders, and Ryder had to confront him after one particularly bad incident in which Anna walked in on Nils changing and ran from the room screeching with laughter. As much as they like Anna (and often ask Kristoff for advice on how to talk to her, much to his annoyance) there is only so much _Anna_ that a group of teenage boys can take.

Kristoff doesn’t think he’ll reach that point any time soon.

But there are times like these, when Anna shows up uninvited and throws herself under the covers on his bed and says things like, “Ooh you made tea? For me?” that make Kristoff curse himself for forgetting to charm his door shut from the inside.

Kristoff can never stay mad at her for long though, not when she burrows into his sheets oblivious to the fact that they’ll smell like the warm vanilla perfume Elsa gave her last Christmas for the rest of the day. He especially can’t stay mad when she looks so warm and flushed and cozy and then complains about the fact that he doesn’t strain his tea well enough for her liking, but it was “incredibly sweet” of him to think of her in the first place.

It’s times like these that Kristoff does his very best to bury the thoughts like _pretty_ and _soft_ and _special_ in the back of his mind never to be unearthed, but despite his best attempts they always take root instead.

Maybe he forgets to charm the door on purpose.

So, Kristoff gives her a sigh that’s half amused and half content and crawls under the covers of his bed with her, very aware of their lack of personal space, and very content to just let it happen.

They’ve been sitting mostly in silence for a while except for the occasional comment about classes or Quidditch scores and enjoying the peaceful snowfall outside when Anna sets down her tea and turns to him while clearing her throat.

“Kristoff?”

“Mhm?”

She wrings her hands together nervously. “We’re going to Hogsmeade together this weekend, right?”

The eager look on her face makes Kristoff's heart crumble a little.

“Anna of course I would love to go with you – “

“Perfect! Because I’ve heard about this cute little tea shop – Madam Puddifoot’s – have you heard of it? Never mind that though, we can go to Honeydukes and Zonko's and – “

“ – but we can’t.”

“ – and of course the Three Broom – wait, what?” Anna freezes mid-ramble and turns to Kristoff with furrowed brows. “What do you mean we can’t?” She gulps, “do you – do you already have plans to go with someone?”

“No no no, that’s not what I meant! ” Kristoff backtracks when he sees the telltale tremble of Anna’s lower lip that means she’s doing her best to hold back tears. “I wish we could! Go, that is. I mean I wish we could go, you know, together.”

Anna is sniffling and refusing to make eye contact and Kristoff is desperate to make it stop so he turns his body to face her completely and takes both of her slightly snotty hands in his own and says, “I can’t go with you because I never got the permission slip signed. Muggle foster parents and all.”

When Anna finally looks up, she’s got a watery smile trembling on her face. “Why didn’t you just say so to begin with?”

Kristoff pulls his hands out of hers and leans back against the headboard. “You never really gave me the chance to.”

Anna is silent for the next few moments in favor of fiddling with the sheets around them, smoothing the covers down over their legs and toying with the fraying hems. When she finally speaks up, her voice is stronger, like her tears have completely dried.

“I’m sorry, Kris. I just wish you didn’t have to hide if from them”

“Me too, Anna.” Kristoff sighs, “but Hogsmeade is just one weekend, and you should still go have fun. We have all the other ones to do whatever we want together.”

Anna hums softly in agreement and that settles the conversation. As much as Kristoff really doesn’t care about trivial things like Hogsmeade weekends, now that the thought of going with Anna has been implanted in his mind, he finds it hard to shake the disappointment he’s feeling. It’s not like he hadn’t tried to get the form signed either. He explained the situation to Professor Mattias, but even his Head of House was unable to do anything about the strict rules regarding Hogsmeade trips.

Instead of worrying about it, Kristoff focuses on the soft collection of snow gathering on his window ledge and on Anna’s even breathing next to him as she drops her head to rest on his shoulder. They sit in comfortable silence until Kristoff begins to feel drowsy from the tea and added warmth of Anna in his bed. He’s only minutes away from dozing off, like he thinks Anna already has, when she hums gently into his shoulder.

“Hey, Kristoff?”

“Mhm?”

“If you can’t go to Hogsmeade, I’m going to bring Hogsmeade to you.”

* * *

For the next four days Anna talks his ear off about how she’s going to bring him Butterbeer and Fizzing Whizbees and Acid Pops even though they kind of hurt at first and Nougat Chunks and all the Sugar Quills he could ever possibly desire. If he can’t see it for himself, Anna is determined to bring the experience to him. If she’s this excited about the mere idea of Hogsmeade, Kristoff can’t imagine how happy she’ll be when she sees the real thing.

He can imagine her dragging him between shops and getting sticky treacle fudge all over their cold hands and running out of breath from laughing so hard at Zonko’s Joke Shop and warming up from the freezing cold by squishing into a small booth across from her flushed and smiling face while drinking Butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks and he feels a pang of longing in his chest that he can’t quite place.

He doesn’t exactly understand why it’s so important to Anna that he experience it with her, but Kristoff knows that once she sets her mind to something Anna is very difficult to persuade otherwise. Besides, if he’s being honest, Kristoff has started to let himself look forward to the little secret Hogsmeade party that she’s been planning, if only because she’s talked about it so much that Kristoff can’t help but share her excitement.

However, when that Friday comes and Kristoff sits at the desk he and Anna share in their combined Defense Against the Dark Arts class, she never shows up.

He frets nervously for the entire class. It’s not like Anna to miss a class _ever_ , let alone to not send him an owl or something to let him know. She’s been chatting his ears off all week, barging into bathrooms and sending him owls in The Great Hall during breakfast.

They’re learning about Boggarts today, but Kristoff barely pays attention to the lecture because he spends the majority of class watching the clock and staring out the window at the snowy courtyard counting down the minutes until he can get out and go check on Anna. It’s a blizzard outside and for a split second an image of Anna frozen and alone out in the woods passes through his mind. Kristoff tells himself he’s being crazy, that she’s probably just lost track of time in the library like she always does when she’s deep in some book about Witch burning in the fourteenth century or some other topic that would bore Kristoff to death.

Still, no matter how hard he tries to convince himself that she’s probably fine, the fear still lingers in the back of his mind for the rest of class.

Eventually, Professor Mattias calls everyone up to the front of the room and Kristoff snaps out of his worry induced haze. He tells them they’re going to practice banishing Boggarts for themselves, and Kristoff actually perks up at the idea. Defense Against the Dark Arts has always been his best class and his favorite days are when they get to practice in real life.

Students line up one by one behind Professor Mattias who lets the Boggart out of it’s wardrobe. It flies directly up to him and rearranges itself into a thick grey fog that he banishes with a loud bellow.

“ _Riddikulus!”_

The fog immediately turns into a large fluffy cloud in the shape of the Hufflepuff badger.

One by one, the students in front of Kristoff face their greatest fears. He sees clowns and rats and spiders and even a broomstick from one particularly small Gryffindor who Kristoff saw in the infirmary last week getting a broken arm fixed by Nurse Gerda.

When his turn approaches, Kristoff imagines his Boggart will be something along the lines of a car crash like the one his parents died in, or maybe Sven getting caught by an eagle, but instead as he approaches the Boggart, it immediately takes the shape of a very detailed ice sculpture of a girl.

A girl that looks very distinctly like Anna.

The crowd of students behind him breaks into a loud whisper, but Kristoff is determined to ignore it and takes a purposeful step forwards. He does his best to conjure up an image of something funny in his mind, and waves his wand at the Boggart.

“ _Riddikulus!”_

Instead of turning into a snowman like he had hoped, the ice sculpture of Anna begins to crack.

He tries again, “ _Riddikulus!”_ But it only cracks further, and small bits of her ice robe begin to break off.

The group behind him is dead silent now, and out of the corner of his eye Kristoff can see Professor Mattias take a few steps closer to him. Kristoff needs to try one more time though. The image of a snowman is clear in his mind as he shouts, “ _Riddikulus!”_ and Kristoff feels glee for a split second when the Boggart begins to change shape, but instead of turning into a snowman, a resounding _crash_ echoes across the room as the ice sculpture shatters to the ground in a million little pieces.

For one quiet moment, the room is completely still as no one dares breathe, but the next second Professor Mattias rushes in front of Kristoff and banishes the thick fog that appears back into the wardrobe as the class breaks into a nervous chatter.

From behind Kristoff, Anders claps a heavy hand on his shoulder that breaks him out of his stupor.

“Hey mate why don’t you take a break?” Anders guides him by the shoulder back to the desk where Anna _should_ be. “You look a little pale, and I’m sure she just got distracted, Kris. You know how she is.”

It’s not really comforting, but Kristoff nods dumbly nonetheless.

For the next ten minutes, Professor Mattias does his best to get the class back on track, but everyone looks just as restless as Kristoff feels, so he dismisses the class early. Kristoff can hear his name being called, but he haphazardly throws everything into his book bag and sprints from the classroom.

He takes the stairs two at a time and skids around sharp corners before landing in front of the Gryffindor common room. He argues with the Fat Lady for at least three minutes when she tries to get him to listen to her latest song and because _she_ _really shouldn’t let him in even though he knows the password_ until he yells at her loud enough that she looks so taken aback and swings the door open with an indignant, “ _Well I never!”_

Thankfully the common room is mostly empty, so Kristoff stomps up the stairs on the left to the girls third year suite and barrels through the door without knocking. When he scans the room quickly, he almost misses strands of red hair peaking out from the lump under the covers on Anna’s bed. As his heart rate already begins to slow down, Kristoff approaches her bed and pulls the covers back gently to reveal Anna's face.

Her hair is matted and strewn across her pillow, and her mouth is wide open and Kristoff can spot drool marks on her chin and he lets out the breathe he didn’t even know he was holding. When he looks closer, he sees that her nose looks raw and red, and there are tissues covering nearly every inch of the floor around her bed.

She also smells a bit like she hasn’t showered in a few days, but Kristoff doesn’t really mind. He lives with three other teenage boys.

He’s berating himself for overreacting while gently pulling the covers back up her body when Anna shifts and begins to sniffle and groan loudly.

“Who’s it – what – who’s there?” She grumbles and tries to sit up while rubbing her eyes.

“Hi, sorry its me,” he says with a sheepish grin.

“Hmph,” Anna sniffles, “who needs to learn how to knock now, huh?”

“I uh – I may have thrown a little fit in Defense when you weren’t there.” He grins, “It was wicked embarrassing.”

“You embarrassed yourself for me?” Anna turns to fully look at him and Kristoff can see just how sick she really is. There are deep dark bags under her eyes, her lips are chapped, and Kristoff can tell she’s breathing through her mouth even as she sits upright. “I wish I had been there to see it,” she tries to giggle, but it turns into a full-blown coughing fit instead.

Kristoff sits gingerly on the edge of her bed, careful to avoid any snot covered tissues and says, “I’m just glad you’re alright. I thought you might’ve gotten stuck out in the snow or something.” He looks out her window and sees the blizzard has died down, and flakes are floating gently to the ground now.

“Nope, just sick in bed. I just woke up like this which means I’ll probably be pretty gross for a few days which just means I’m going to have to bundle up when I go to Hogsmeade for you tomorrow but – ”

“Anna no,” Kristoff interrupts her. “You cannot possibly believe that going out in this weather while you look near death is a good idea.”

“But I promised!” Anna cries out. “I had everything planned! Elsa even taught me a spell to keep Butterbeer warm until I could bring it to you!” She sticks her lower lip out in a pout and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“Look, I’m not telling you what to do, but I can live without trying Butterbeer for a couple months until the next Hogsmeade weekend comes around.” Kristoff tries to bargain with her, “and who knows maybe I’ll convince Mattias to sign my permission slip by then.”

Anna opens her mouth to argue but hesitates, “are you sure?”

“100%”

“Well, I do feel pretty bad,” Anna considers, “but! I’ll make a decision when I wake up tomorrow.”

“S’alright with me. As long as you stay in bed for now and get as much rest as you can.”

“You should go, I don’t want to get you sick.”

“Bjorgman’s don’t get sick,” Kristoff dismisses her lightly even though he really doesn’t know whether that’s true or not, “I’ll stay with you until you fall back asleep.”

He climbs up her bed and sits beside her as she snuggles back underneath the covers. They talk about mundane things for a bit, but it doesn’t take long for her to drift off. Kristoff is in the middle of telling her about Ryder’s Boggart that looked suspiciously like Anna’s cat, Olaf, when he hears soft snoring coming from below him.

She looks so relaxed in her sleep and it hurts Kristoff to think he was staring at her ice statue barely an hour ago. He takes his cue to leave and lifts himself up gently off the bed. He does his best to tuck her in tightly, and closes the blinds so she can sleep in darkness.

The door clicks quietly behind Kristoff, and he trots down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. People are milling about now, chatting and relaxing since classes are over for the week, and the room falls silent as people start to notice Kristoff coming down. He gets a few nods and smiles from people he recognizes from his Defense class, which Kristoff returns, and hears hushed whispers coming from a few others.

It should bother him, but Kristoff has other things brewing on his mind, like how he’s going to bring Hogsmeade to Anna tomorrow.

* * *

The next afternoon has Kristoff buzzing with excitement.

After he got back to his own common room last night and all of the Hufflepuff thirds years bombarded him with questions about Anna’s condition, Kristoff pulled Nils, Anders, and Ryder into their bedroom and told them his plan.

He made a list of all the things Anna had been most excited to bring him, like Pepper Imps and Pumpkin Pasties, as well as Extendable Ears and Dung Bombs so they could continue their pranking streak. His list nearly reached the floor, but they were willing and excited to help as long as they could join the ‘party’ afterwards.

That morning, after Kristoff had gotten an owl from Anna explaining that she felt even worse than the day before, he waited impatiently near the crowd of students by the courtyard gates getting their permission slips verified and scanned the crowd looking for any signs of familiar icy blonde hair. She was essential to his plan, and Kristoff wasn’t giving up until he found her. Luckily, only a few minutes later Kristoff caught a glimpse of white among the thinning crowed. He pushed his way through and nearly ran straight into Elsa.

She was wearing muggle clothes, which _whoa she looked different_ , and was hand in hand with a sixth year Hufflepuff that Kristoff recognized as Ryder's sister and a prefect last year, Honeymaren.

Even though they were friendly, Kristoff was still slightly intimidated by Elsa as she was older and smarter and definitely looked like she could end him with a snap of her fingers, but Kristoff reminded himself that he was doing this for Anna. He apologized multiple times for interrupting their date, to which Elsa had blushed profusely and Honeymaren just smiled brightly, and then rushed through his well-rehearsed speech in under 30 seconds and waited for her reply with bated breath.

To his delight, Elsa had just smiled and put a gentle hand on his arm while saying, “That sounds lovely, Kristoff. Of course we’ll help.” And with that, Kristoff thanked them just as many times as he apologized and took off towards the castle.

For the rest of the afternoon Kristoff ignored Anna’s five increasingly irritated subsequent owls demanding that he answer her and come keep her company in her room. Instead, he waited patiently as his three roommates began trickling back in with a large assortment of candy and toys. At 6, he received two owls; one from Elsa saying that they were back and ready with the Butterbeer whenever he was, and another from Anna’s roommate that Kristoff had also tracked down earlier that day saying that Anna had just returned from her shower and was getting ready to get back in bed for the rest of the night.

Which meant it was go time.

Kristoff figured that by the time he reached the Gryffindor common room from his own room, Anna would be dressed and back in bed. So now, after making a cup of her favorite tea and very deliberately straining the leaves right, he’s face to face with the Fat Lady prepared to argue his way in again. Instead, she takes one look at the group of Hufflepuff's and Ravenclaw's behind him and sighs, “ _I don’t even want to know,”_ before swinging the door wide open. Kristoff leaves everyone behind in the common room as he climbs the stairs to Anna’s suite. He knocks, hissing when he sloshes some hot tea over his wrist, but schools his face into a grin just as the door cracks open and Anna peers through.

“Kristoff?” She opens the door wide and says through a clogged nose, “I’ve been owling you all day!”

He pushes past her into the room and kicks the door shut behind him with his foot. “I know, and I’m sorry, I’ve just been busy writing my uh – my history of magic paper all day.”

“We don’t have a history of magic paper though?”

“Oops! You’re right, wrong class,” Kristoff shrugs and gestures to the tea he’s just set down at her bedside, “I brought you tea to make up for it.”

From her spot by the door, Anna says cautiously, “That’s very sweet of you, but what are you doing here now?”

He’s _waiting_ for everybody to get things set up in the common room below, but he tells her, “You said you felt worse than before, so I came to make sure you were alright.”

His explanation seems good enough for Anna, who drops her hands from her hips and joins him on the bed next to a purring Olaf.

“I feel better after my shower, but I haven’t been able to keep anything down all day, so I’m absolutely starving now.”

“Perfect! After you drink your tea do you want to head to the Great Hall and grab dinner?”

Anna agrees and after a few minutes of sipping quietly she announces that she’s ready to go as soon as she puts her robes back on. Kristoff tells her that he’ll wait for her in the common room and bounds out the room and down the stairs.

When Anna appears at the top of the stairwell, she’s dressed in a Gryffindor sweater and a uniform skirt and is braiding her still damp hair into her classic two braids. She does look a lot healthier, and when Kristoff smiles at her from the bottom on the stairs, the one she returns to him is no longer strained.

Except when she spots the set-up behind him, her jaw drops.

Each of the table of the common room has been set up to represent a different store from Hogsmeade. Kristoff had spent the better portion of his afternoon learning to charm some old banners to rearrange their letters to spell out “Zonko’s Joke Shop” and “Honeydukes” and “The Three Broomsticks” and “Madam Puddifoot’s.” Underneath each sign is an assortment of joke toys, candies and sweets, a large keg of Butterbeer, and a collection of pastries and tea from their respective shops.

“Kristoff?” Anna asks as she starts down the staircase. “Is this what I think it is?”

“You were so sad about not being able to go to Hogsmeade, so I brought Hogsmeade to you.” Kristoff gestures around at all of their friends and the treats they helped bring back from the village.

When Anna reaches him she’s sniffling, but not from her cold. “I don’t know what to say!” She throws her arms around Kristoff’s torso and he wraps his arms around her quivering shoulders in return. With her face buried in his chest, Anna mumbles, “this was supposed to be my job, silly.”

Kristoff rubs a calming hand across her back and careful extracts himself from her grip. Holding her by the shoulders, he looks into her eyes and says, “Just promise me you won’t get sick next time and we can go together, okay.”

She responds with a watery grin and leaves his side to join their group of friends in the common room. For the rest of night, everyone makes their way around their miniature Hogsmeade. Kristoff’s fingers tingle with warmth after his second mug of Butterbeer, and he decides it definitely lives up to all the hype Anna gave it. He shares tea and cake with her at Madam Puddifoot’s and he spends the rest of the night sucking on a Sugar Quill from Honeydukes and watching her make faces as she tries Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and Toothflossing Stringmints. He sees Elsa and Honeymaren wrapped up by the fire together passing a mug of Butterbeer between themselves, and Nils, Anders, and Ryder trying to slip each other Hiccough Sweets when the others aren’t looking and the happiness of it all overwhelms Kristoff.

It’s all fun and games until Ryder accidentally lets off a Dung Bomb in the middle of the common room and they have to evacuate until the stench dies down.

Still, Kristoff hasn’t felt this pleasantly warm in a long time, and even though a lot of it has to do with the Butterbeer, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

At the end of the night, once everyone is drowsy from all the sweets and drink, they begin to depart the Gryffindor common room to their own houses one by one. Eventually, only Kristoff and Anna remain. They’re sitting on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other with their legs tangled together in front of the warm crackling fireplace.

“This better have been worth it,” Kristoff gives her a joking little shove with his foot, “Nils almost killed me after I made him go into Madam Puddifoot’s alone for you.”

It makes Anna giggle and the sound is music to Kristoff’s ears. “You can tell him I appreciate his sacrifice very much.”

“I’m sure he would do it again if _you_ asked.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you, Kris.”

She says it so abruptly and sincerely that Kristoff is forced to look her in the eyes. She’s smiling softly, and he thinks the dancing fire next to them makes her clear blue eyes twinkle more than they usually do.

He thinks of the Boggart and the image of Anna frozen into a million pieces on the floor and the desperation he felt in that moment, and he says to Anna softly, “I don’t know what I would without you either.”

* * *

Turns out, Bjorgmans do get sick.

Terribly, mind-numbingly, achingly sick.

Anna tells him that he needs to take better care of his health, but she’s there to nurse him back to health nonetheless. For three days she fusses over him in between her classes, bringing him soup and tea and trying to force him into the shower so she can change his sheets. When Kristoff laments about all the school work he’s missing, Anna goes round to each of his professors and collects all of his assignments.

It’s a little embarrassing how much he enjoys having someone fret over him like this, but he chalks it up to his lack of a family and nothing more.

Except on that last night, after Anna has brought him copious amounts of tea and has long gone to bed herself, Kristoff picks up his abandoned cup on a whim and gives the remaining leaves three swirls with his left hand before carefully placing the cup upside down on his nightstand to drain. He forgets about it overnight, but it’s the first thing Kristoff looks at in the morning when he wakes up.

The leaves don’t look like anything distinct at first, but the more Kristoff looks at if from different angles, the more he has to convince himself that he’s _not_ looking at the shape of a heart.

But then Kristoff thinks about the last few days, and the person who made him this cup of tea, and he thinks maybe he’s not so bad at divination after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Madam Puddifoot's is a very 'coupley' place if that tells you anything about Anna's mindset in this.


	4. Fourth Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit I'm sorry its been like 1.5 weeks but this chapter murdered me, and then revived me, and then murdered me even harder. Also, got distracted with the holidays. I'm apologizing in advance that you have to read this monstrosity, it is dense.

Kristoff goes through a growth spurt that summer, and he’s not the only one who notices.

He spends half of summer playing hockey with some muggle boys he meets at the local rink and spends the rest of the time sleeping until the afternoon and eating his way through his foster parent’s pantry. When August nears a close, he tries on his school robes in the secrecy of his closet like he always does to quell his back-to-school nerves. Instead of the usual solace they bring him, Kristoff finds that his sweater is pulled uncomfortably tight across his shoulders, and his robes and trousers reveal an almost embarrassing amount of ankle.

He has muscles now, from all the hockey, and there are a few faint blond hairs that start popping up on his upper lip. Kristoff thinks they look cool, but his muggle friends laugh so much that he reluctantly begins to charm them off.

When he runs into Anna at the train station a few days later, she looks him up (and up) and down with wide eyes and says a bit breathlessly, “Kristoff, you’re huge!”

Kristoff feels the heat rush to his cheeks instantaneously, but the moment ends quickly when Anna spots his pale bare ankles and spends the entire train ride to Hogwarts teasing him relentlessly.

 _Kristoff_ spends the train ride contemplating what to do about his sudden interest in wrapping his hands around Anna’s tiny waist and pulling her tight against his chest to get her to stop talking for once. He decides not to eliminate it as a suitable option just yet and starts daydreaming about tracing the freckles across her soft and flushed cheeks with one hand while holding her close with the other.

Within a week of returning to Hogwarts, Kristoff gets approached by the Hufflepuff Quidditch captains, Henrik and Magnus. Kristoff blinks, and five minutes later he’s being welcomed to the team as their newest chaser with an excited clap on the back and an order to meet them on the pitch for practice early the next morning.

And he absolutely loves it. There is _nothing_ more liberating that flying 50 meters off the ground with only a broomstick to stop him from free falling and it is _exhilarating_. He loves the feeling of wind in his hair and the sound of excited shouts coming from the stands that are all his.

He especially loves when they play Gryffindor, and among the sea of red and gold Kristoff can spot a flash of yellow that he knows belongs to the Hufflepuff scarf that Anna stole from his trunk last year when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Sometimes, Kristoff daydreams about winning the Quidditch cup and Anna racing across the pitch to jump into his arms, beaming proudly and wrapped in yellow. He likes to think she would wrap her legs around his waist, and he would hold her up by her thighs and kiss her and – then he’ll get hit by a bludger that knocks him out of his fantasy.

But all the excitement and daydreaming means that the first few months of school pass by in the blink of an eye. Quidditch season comes to a close and Hufflepuff decidedly does _not_ with the cup, so Kristoff begrudgingly settles for the sympathetic hug he gets from Anna instead as they watch Slytherin gloat and shout obscenities at them from the stands. He’ll never admit to it, but Kristoff milks the loss longer strictly necessary because he secretly likes the sympathy attention more than he expected.

But after a few days of his moping, Anna stomps over to the Hufflepuff common room and berates him for, “acting like a sore loser,” and tells him to come find her when he decided to “get up and do something about it.” She leaves with a huff and Kristoff is faced with the fact that he likes seeing her fired up and bossing him around, and he scrambles out of his chair after her amidst hoots and whistles from his teammates.

Then when December comes, Anna tells him that her father has been appointed the new Minister for Magic and within a week, the Headmaster announces that Hogwarts is hosting its first ever public Yule ball for the wizarding community, in honor of Agnarr Arendelle and the close ties he holds with Hogwarts.

Its like the perfect opportunity to tell Anna how he feels has landed in his lap, but Kristoff couldn’t be any more clueless about how to ask her.

They’re studying in the library a few nights after the announcement when Anna motions for him to lean across the table. She whispers in his ear that a group of fifth year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors have been following them around the castle grounds all day and _don’t look now_ but they’re sitting at the table next to them whispering and giggling in their direction.

Anna thinks it’s hilarious how uncomfortable Kristoff is with the attention and tells him he better pick someone soon so that she doesn’t have to deal with a dozen Hufflepuff girls glaring at her between classes anymore. He can’t help but smirk when he tells her that he has someone in mind, but when he refuses to tell her who, Anna abruptly excuses herself from the table by mumbling something about Herbology homework and hurrying out of the library without even so much as a goodnight.

Kristoff stares at Anna’s empty spot in confusion until he looks up at the next table over and sees the group of girls openly staring at him like he’s prey and he books it out of the library after her.

He spends the next week steering clear of abandoned corridors and ducking into dark, empty classroom to narrowly avoid the impressively bold girls that seem to have learned his schedule. Kristoff almost wets himself when he catches a scary looking second year from Slytherin trying to slip some bright pink liquid into his tea one night. She spends the entire meal smiling menacingly at him from across the hall and Kristoff spends it sulking about how terribly he misses Anna and her ability to make him laugh in situations like this.

He thinks he catches a millions glimpses of her fiery red hair in between classes, on the stairwells, and across the Great Hall, but every time he rushes to greet her, Anna is no where to be found. It’s not abnormal for them to go a couple days without seeing each other now that they’re busy with fourth year studies, but a nagging voice in the back of Kristoff’s mind tells him that something is different this time. Ryder and Anders tell him he’s overreacting, and Nils tells him that Anna’s made him too soft and if Kristoff doesn’t ask her to the ball soon, he will.

Kristoff transfigures Nils’ pet rat into a teacup in retaliation.

There is still a full week until the Yule ball next Wednesday, which Kristoff figures is more than enough time to track her down and ask her (as soon as he figures out how). However, his earlier fears are confirmed when he sends her an owl asking her to meet him for dinner one evening and Sven returns empty handed like he _never_ does.

He makes the briefest eye contact with her across the Great Hall that night and there’s a look of hurt in her eyes as she frowns at him and turns her whole body away from him. It makes Kristoff’s chest tighten uncomfortably with a feeling he can’t quite name but he hates all the same.

So, she’s avoiding him, and Kristoff just wants to lie in bed and stop thinking about how confusing everything is and why its hurts so badly. If it weren’t for his friend’s sympathetic hugs and subsequent begs for him to take a shower, he might have done just that. Instead, he drags himself to and from classes for the next two days and when he sees flashes of red hair in the corridors he forces himself to turn the opposite direction.

Then, on the Saturday morning before the Yule ball, he sees Anna and Elsa arguing in hushed whispers and gesturing wildly at each other in an abandoned sixth floor corridor.

He doesn’t think much of it, after all they are sisters and they’ve always argued about things Kristoff could never understand, but that night while Kristoff is trying to turn Ryder’s pet hedgehog into a pincushion, Anna storms into his common room with a loud huff and throws herself onto the couch next to him.

It takes a few minutes to recover from his initial shock of her sudden appearance, but then she’s wiggling her toes under his thighs and sighing dramatically like she does when she wants his attention and Kristoff wonders if he made the whole thing up. He’s already uncomfortably warm in front of the common room fire, and the nervousness he’s been experiencing around her lately does nothing to help.

He sets the hedgehog down gingerly and faces her, only to find that she’s already staring him down with an intense look in her eye. “Look, Anna, I’m sorry –”

“I’ve missed you.”

Something even warmer lights up in Kristoff’s chest, and it has nothing to do with the fire. “I’ve missed you too.”

She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes but Kristoff is content to sit there in silence as long as it means he gets to have this time with her. He can’t fight the smile tugging at the corner of his lips and he realizes these are the moments he enjoys with Anna the most. Her cold feet tucked under his thighs and the fire glistening in her eyes. She doesn’t _need_ to say anything because just her presence is enough to make up for the past few days of radio silence. Her eyes are focused anywhere but his, yet Kristoff feels no awkwardness between them, only warmth and silent understanding.

And it makes Kristoff realize he doesn’t need perfect timing or the perfect moment to ask her to the ball. _These_ are the special moments he cherishes most with her. When they sit in front of the fire until two in the morning and they talk about everything or nothing at all and he still feels like her knows her better after each night. His heart races when he looks at her and they way she glows softly in the firelight and the full weight of how much he missed her hits him like a train.

“I’m going to the Yule ball with Hans.”

Okay, _that_ hits him like a train.

Anna nudges him gently with her foot when he doesn’t immediately respond and prompts, “Kris, did you hear me?”

“Uh – yeah. You mean Westergaard?” Kristoff dares to glance sideways at Anna and sees a hesitant grin on her face. “I didn’t know you guys were that close.”

“Oh! Well we’re not really yet. I mean –” Anna shifts onto her knees and plays with her fingers in her lap while avoiding eye contact, “– we only just met officially this week but we’ve been spending a lot of time together and –”

“Wait, hold up,” Kristoff furrows his brow, “You mean to tell me this guy’s never even spoken to you before this week and now he suddenly wants to take you to the Yule ball? Isn’t he a little old for you?”

“Well, yes, but he’s only seventeen.” Anna stops fiddling and squints at him suspiciously. “Besides what’s it matter to you how old he is?”

“I just think it’s a little strange that a seventh year Slytherin would want to take a fourth year Gryf to the Yule ball.” Kristoff shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be, like, rivals or something?”

“I don’t _know_ , Kristoff. I think it’s a little silly to judge someone by their house.” She sighs wearily, “Anyways, I’m tired. I didn’t come here to argue with you, trust me I’ve had enough of that from Elsa.”

“Well you obviously came here for my opinion and I think she might be right.”

“How can you say that when you don’t even know him?”

“I don’t need to know him,” Kristoff huffs and crosses his arms. “I’ve seen more than enough.”

“Oh, don’t be so cynical, Kris!” Anna laughs at him, “How bad can he be, he’s _head boy_.”

“He’s in Slytherin, Anna! That’s how bad he can be!” Kristoff throws his arms up in disgust. “He took _fifty_ points from Hufflepuff last week because Oliver dropped a book on his toes, and he’s only a first year!”

He sees a brief look of surprise cross Anna’s face, but her eyes harden and her hands fly to her hips.

“And you would care just as much if it had been Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, right?” Anna demands. “Besides, I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding.”

Kristoff rolls his eyes and stands up from the couch, waving his arms in the air. “It’s the principal of it! Besides, do you even know anything about him? Like what’s his favorite color? His best friends name?” He asks her accusingly.

Anna laughs hysterically at this, pushing herself up from the couch to match him, even though he’s an entire head taller than her. “None of that _matters_! It’s not like I’m going to marry him!”

“Well maybe you should know these things seeing as you’ve spent so much time with him.”

“You are blowing this _way_ out of proportion; I really don’t understand why you’re so upset by this.”

“I just think you would have more fun with someone your own age, like –”

“Who? Like you? Is this –” she gestures between them, breathing heavily and nearly shouting at each other in from of the rest of the common room “– your idea of fun?”

“Well it _could have been_ before you decided to –”

“Decided to do what, Kristoff?” She glares harder at him. “Decided to have _one_ night out with a guy who might _possibly_ like me as more than a friend? Is that _so_ hard for you to comprehend?”

“Of course not!” It makes Kristoff so unbelievably frustrated that she just can’t _see_ it. “Of course not, I’m just saying you don’t need _him_ to have a good time!”

“Well it may surprise you to know that maybe I _want_ to get dressed up and do my hair and dance with a cute boy who cares about me!” Anna cries out, fists curled into tight balls at her side. “And that doesn’t mean I’m not still the same person you’ve always been friends with.”

It takes Kristoff aback to think Anna might have thought he would ever judge her for wanting that.

“We could have gone together,” Kristoff pleads, changing tactics and taking a step towards her. “We can still go! And you can dress up and I won’t complain when you step on my toes like you always do _because_ I like you and how excited you get about these things!”

Anna shakes her head and takes a step backwards. “I won’t be your last resort, Kris! I’m not your backup plan just because none of the other dozen girls following you around are good enough for you.”

“Anna, you’re the only person I want to do these big things with.” Kristoff’s voice cracks and his eyes start to burn with tears when she refuses to look at him. “You would never be my last resort! I just never had time to ask you before you started avoiding me.”

“You know what he said to me when he asked?” Anna whispers and her lower lip begins to tremble. “He said he’s been wanting to talk to me for ages, but he had a hard time getting me alone because I was _always_ with you, Kristoff. In the library, the Great Hall, the courtyard – for Godrics’s sake I literally follow you into bathrooms!” A tear streaks her cheek she wipes it away furiously before continuing, “If you really wanted to go with me, you’ve had more than enough time to ask.”

He carefully steps towards her until she backs into and armchair and has nowhere to move. When he reaches her, Kristoff realizes how much smaller she looks in this moment, and it hurts in his chest to think he could have done that to her.

“Please, Anna, don’t cry,” Kristoff tries to reach out to her, “I’m sorry, you’re right, I have no say in who you get to go to the ball with, but if we just sit down and talk this out like you tried to earlier I think –”

“And I _thought_ maybe my best friend would want me to have fun for once without worrying about what other people think,” Anna says bitterly, “but apparently I was wrong.”

And with that, she rips her hands out of his like she’s been burned and flees the common room, leaving Kristoff behind feeling cold and alone despite the happy warmth of the fire flickering beside him.

* * *

Kristoff is lucky there are no classes that week because he doesn’t think _anything_ could have gotten him out of bed for the next three days. He eats a few random meals and at one point he tries getting on his broomstick for some fresh air, but he imagines the sight of Anna cheering for him in the stands and it makes him sick to his stomach.

And the thing is, he knows how wrong he was to yell at her. He _knows_ that she gets to make those decisions for herself and he knows that Anna can take care of herself. He feels horrible because she deserves to have fun with whoever she wants and just because his heart races when he hears her voice and his palms get sweaty when she smiles at him doesn’t mean he has any right to tell her otherwise.

And he hopes that he’s wrong about Hans and that Anna has the night of her life with him because if he makes her happy then Kristoff will learn to live with it. As long as Anna keeps him around.

When the night of the Yule ball arrives, Kristoff forces himself to put on the fancy dress robes Anna had forced him to buy with a mischievous look in her eyes when he was getting fitted for robes at the beginning of the year. They’re stiff and uncomfortable and Kristoff has to force himself to not tug on his collar every other minute, but he reminds himself how pleased Anna had look when he tried them on and it makes the discomfort bearable.

Ryder is the only other Hufflepuff third year without a date, so they head down to the Great Hall together and find that the hall has been transformed into a giant ballroom. There is magical holiday music drifting through the air, trees wrapped in twinkling lights, and everything is covered in a beautiful light layer of snow. Lined against the walls are tables overflowing with every type of desert and pastry Kristoff can imagine, as well as kegs of their favorite drinks like hot chocolate, butterbeer, and pumpkin juice.

He’s about to make a beeline for the keg of butterbeer when Ryder tugs on the sleeve of his dress robes urgently and whispers, “Kristoff, look.”

When he turns around, Kristoff sees Anna coming down the steps of the main stairwell, and his heart skips a beat.

She’s wearing a long, flowy, deep emerald colored dress that cinches at her waist. The sleeves are made of a sheer fabric in the same shade that flutter with each step she takes down the stairs. For once, her hair is out of braids and instead pulled back into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, and little pieces of her bangs have fallen out to frame her face.

Her cheeks are flushed and her blue eyes look even brighter than usual against her dark eyelids and even from a far Kristoff can see how much they’re twinkling in the warm glow of candlelight that lines the halls.

She looks beautiful, like she always does, but in a way Kristoff has never seen before. The color of her dress makes the warm red of her hair stand out even more against her pale, freckled skin, and Kristoff longs to tuck the loose strands behind her ears as he apologizes for the things he said.

Anna is smiling in the giddy way she does when she’s trying to hold in her excitement. She looks so _happy_ and for one second it makes Kristoff forget they aren’t speaking, until his eyes focus on the arm her small hands are wrapped around.

Hans Westergaard, seventh year Slytherin and _Head Boy_ of Hogwarts is extremely stoic as he enters the Great Hall with Anna on his arm. He looks stiff and pompous, Kristoff thinks, which is in stark contrast to Anna practically bouncing in her heels by his side.

Her fingers are grasped tightly around his elbow and he’s practically dragging her along and Kristoff thinks bitterly that if it were him, he would be holding her hand and taking as much time with her as possible and grinning just as wildly.

Instead, Anna doesn’t see him and Kristoff is left staring with his mouth wide open and an aching in his chest that he doesn’t know how to stop.

He spends the next couple of hours desperately trying to get a glimpse of Anna through the crowd of dancing teenagers and adults alike. He pushes past groups of people with polite, _excuse me_ ’s _,_ and _behind you_ ’s, using his new height to his advantage to scan above the crowd for any flash of red hair or twinkle of blue eyes. He gets jostled around in return and at some point someone spills a cup of something warm and sticky on his shoes, but Kristoff barely even registers it.

He feels panic simmering in his chest the longer he looks because Kristoff doesn’t even know what he would do – what he would _say_ – if he did find her.

“ _Hey, sorry I yelled at you for wanting to go to the ball with a pervy asshole – also, hello Hans!”_

And the thing is, it would probably ruin Anna’s night to see him anyways, which is the one thing he _cannot_ do right now since is seems he narrowly avoided it earlier. She looked so happy when she came down the stair earlier, wearing that genuine smile that Kristoff spends all of his time trying to coax out of her on a daily basis because it makes his stomach flutter to see. Except this time is only made him feel sick, knowing that he had nothing to do with it, and that Hans didn’t have to work nearly as hard to get it.

So, Kristoff retreats to the edge of the ballroom for the rest of the evening. He nurses more butterbeers than he can honestly remember and turns down just as many girls who hover around his table nervously until they pluck up the courage to ask him for a dance. It makes him feel even worse because he _would_ like to dance and he would like to have fun with his friends, but he feels like he doesn’t deserve that until he gets the chance to make things right.

Instead, he lets himself get pleasantly warm and loose from the butterbeer until he forgets why he was upset in the first place. He says hello to his Quidditch teammates and friends that pass by and jovially waves at a few classmates as well, but none of them are the person he wants to see, and that constant reminder is like being hit with wave after wave of cold water. Before long, the night starts winding down and students slowly begin returning to their dorms as the adults take their leave for the night.

But then Ryder is tugging urgently on Kristoff’s sleeve and whispering, “I may know nothing about women, but even I can tell she does not look happy right now,” while pointing at a table to their right.

Kristoff feels like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over his head.

He’s never met them, but because he’s seen pictures and because Anna bears a striking resemblance to her mother, Kristoff recognizes them immediately. Agnarr Arendelle, the new Minister for Magic, and his wife, Iduna Arendelle, are engaged in rapt conversation with Anna and Hans.

Well, mostly Hans. Anna looks like she’s seconds away from bursting into tears, and no one seems to care. He watches her repeatedly tug on his robes and gesture towards the dance floor. He watches how each time as he waves her off dismissively and returns to conversation with her parents. Her parents seem mostly oblivious to their daughter’s distress, but Kristoff knows they would never do anything to purposefully sabotage Anna’s night out. But even as a bystander, Kristoff is annoyed at how disdainfully Hans gestures at her to leave him alone.

As Anna’s best friend, it makes his blood boil when he thinks about how much this night mattered to her and how Hans would rather sit around and talk all night rather than celebrate by dancing with the one person who deserves it the most.

He watches this exchange go on for at least ten minutes, during which Anna makes fewer attempts for his attention and instead wraps her arms around herself like she does when she gets worked up. At some point it looks like her parents catch on, and they must bid themselves good night because they give both Anna and Hans hugs and leave the Great Hall hand in hand.

Kristoff returns his gaze to the younger couple and sees that Anna is gesturing wildly both towards the dance floor and her parents. It doesn’t last long, because eventually Hans leans in close and sneers while saying something that freezes Anna in place, and he storms out of the hall without her.

Anna throws herself into the nearest chair lowers her head into her hands. Only once her shoulders start shaking does Kristoff snap out of his daze, and when Ryder shoves him encouragingly, he gets up and makes his way to her table.

“Hi”

She looks up with a watery sniffle and hastily wipes her eyes when she recognizes him. Avoiding eye contact she whispers, “Hi,” back.

“Um, can I sit?” Kristoff gestures awkwardly at the chair next to her.

“Yeah – uh yes, sure,” she sniffles, “Of course, please sit down.”

Up close, he can see that Anna’s eyes are bloodshot and her cheeks are damp with tears. She’s fiddling with a napkin in her lap, and Kristoff itches to hold her hands in his own. Instead he wipes them nervously on his trousers and takes a few deep breathes to slow the nervous beating of his heart.

“Anna, I – I want to say that I’m sorry and –”

“No!” Anna throws her hands up in front of herself, cutting Kristoff off. “I’m the one who should be apologizing here!”

Kristoff blinks dumbly at her. “Wait, what?”

“Oh here, just let me –” Anna shuffles forwards on her seat and grabs his hands tightly. “Okay, just hear me out, please? I’ve treated you horribly all week, avoiding you and ignoring you all because I was jealous.”

Kristoff dares to let himself feel hopeful. “What do you mean, jealous?”

“I just mean that you were getting all of this attention from people because of Quidditch and I watched all these girls fawn over you and I’m happy for you, don’t get me wrong! But I think I also felt a little jealous that you were doing something that didn’t involve me for once and spending time with all of these new people that weren’t me and I didn’t know how to handle that feeling, so I just ignored you.” She admits sheepishly, but some how it makes Kristoff feel worse.

“Anna, I’m so sorry I made you feel left out, I could _never_ replace you –”

“I know!” She hurries to shush him, “I know and you didn’t do anything wrong, I had just never felt that way before and it took me a while to get over it, and I was! I was slowly accepting that you didn’t need me for _everything_ – which by the way is perfectly healthy and normal – but then the Yule ball came up and I wanted to go with you but you were getting even more attention from literally everyone, and the feeling kind of came creeping back. And then Hans came along and gave me the attention I was craving from you and I just ignored every single red flag.”

“But I do need you! Getting to see you cheer for me in the stands was the main reason I loved Quidditch so much,” Kristoff says stubbornly, too in awe from the rest of her speech to come up with a meaningful response.

“Oh,” Anna blushes bright red and smiles, “I didn’t realize.”

“Well its true, and while we’re apologizing, I’m sorry for letting my assumptions about Hans get in the way of our relationship,” Kristoff squeezes her hand, “I trust your judgement more than anything and I shouldn’t have let myself forget that.”

“And I’m sorry for not trusting your judgement – or Elsa’s – enough, and for saying I was your last resort,” Anna looks him in the eye in the intense, fiery way she does when she’s passionate about something and continues, “You’ve _always_ made me a priority, like now, even when we’re fighting.”

She smiles brilliantly at him and Kristoff feels warmth seep back into his bones.

“What happened?” He asks cautiously. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Anna mindlessly picks at something on her dress and tries to give him a reassuring smile, but it’s replaced by a bitter look when she speaks. “Oh, you know, he refused to dance with me the entire night and then when he found out my father was here he basically threatened to tell people how desperate I was for attention unless I introduced him to my father.”

Kristoff shoots out of his seat and looks around frantically. “Holy – where is he, I swear to –”

“Hey, none of that, okay?” Anna gingerly pulls him back down by their still attached hands and laughs genuinely for the first time all night. “I think his ego was bruised enough when my father told him he wasn’t ‘Ministry Material.’”

“Was that the reason he asked you to the ball in the first place?”

“I think so,” Anna sighs, “he really said to me _‘Oh Anna, balls aren’t for dancing, they’re for making connections, didn’t you know?_ ’ like I was completely clueless. Which, granted, I was a little bit, so I suppose I deserved all of this.”

“Stop that, he used your optimism against you, and nobody deserves that.” Kristoff tries to convey his conviction with another squeeze, and Anna smiles so lovingly at him that Kristoff could combust.

He’s so relieved they’re on speaking terms again, yet Kristoff can’t help but notice Anna doesn’t look nearly as happy as he feels. She’s smiling at him, but there’s still sadness in her eyes that he hates Hans for putting there.

So, he stands abruptly and offers her a hand that she takes suspiciously “There’s still a few songs left,” He grins mischievously at her, “Would you like to dance with me?”

“I couldn’t think of anything better.”

He leads her by the hand onto the dance floor in the middle of an upbeat song. They’re not the best dancers and Anna steps on his toes a few times, but it’s Kristoff’s mission to make sure Anna has a good time, so he goes all out. He spins her and Anna nearly goes flying, but she comes back to him flushed and smiling and out of breath from laughing so hard. She giggles brightly when he dips her over dramatically, and its sweet music to Kristoff’s ears.

When a slower song fills the air, Anna removes her hand from his in favor of wrapping both arms around the back of his neck and stepping closer to him. Kristoff drops his other hand to her waist and his heart melts a little when Anna cranes her neck to look him with wide vulnerable eyes and, oh how he would give _anything_ for her to look at him like that all the time. Kristoff is afraid if he opens his mouth, everything he’s been meaning to say to her since he first saw her at Platform 9 ¾ a few months ago might come tumbling out, but Anna looks away at just the right moment and rests her head against his chest.

His fingers involuntarily squeeze her waist a little harder, but if Anna notices, she doesn’t say anything.

Eventually, Kristoff’s hands migrate up her back and around her shoulders until they’re basically hugging on the dance floor and swaying in time to the music. He decides he _really_ likes having her this close, and he doesn’t want to let her go when the night ends.

“Hey Kris?” Anna mumbles into his chest.

“Mhm?”

“Looks like my wish came true after all.”

“And what was that?”

“To spend the night dancing with a cute boy who cares about me.”

Kristoff is sure she can feel his heart pounding against his rib cage, but he squeezes her even tighter to his chest all the same. All of the aching and hurt and jealousy he’s been feeling this past week melt away as she sighs deeply into his chest and plays absentmindedly with the hairs at the nape his neck. He knows there’s probably more that needs to be said between them, but he settles for pressing a kiss on the top of her head letting the happiness sink in as they sway to the soft beat of music filling the air.

Across the room, Ryder gives him an enthusiastic two thumbs up and Kristoff smiles so hard that it hurts.

He’ll tell her soon, he thinks, but for now, this is more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 14 year old's are dramatic. Also, I'm pretty sure I've given Kristoff a heart condition in this chapter. I don't want to count, but if i had a dollar for every time his heart does something dramatic, I would no longer have student debt.


	5. Fifth Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Before you all start reading I would quickly like to give the BIGGEST thank you to everyone who is reading this. I read all of your comment and tags and replies and it makes me giddy to know how amazing you all are. Also, a very big shout out to somecallmejohn on tumblr for the insane art based off of the last chapter of this fic, I'm in awe of you.

This is the year.

This is the year she’s going to do it. Sure, last year was a blip in her plans, but Anna’s focused now. She knows what she wants and she’s determined to get it.

She’s going to march right up to Kristoff in all of his golden blonde glory and he’ll give her some dorky confused puppy look like he always does, but that won’t stop her! No, she’s going to march up to him and she’s _not_ going to get distracted by his – frankly massive – chest because she’s going say to him, _“Kristoff Bjorgman, I am tired of waiting for this_ ,” and then she’ll fist her hands in his robes and pull him down to meet her, and he’ll steady himself by wrapping his perfectly strong but gentle hands around her waist. She can already hear him whispering her name, _“Anna,”_ breathlessly as she searches his eyes desperately for permission. And then, when she can’t hold herself back any longer, Anna will close her eyes and finally, _finally_ lean forward that last inch, until –

“Anna?”

– something cold and sticky runs down the front of her robes?

“Anna!”

She opens one eye and sees Kristoff looking very concerned at her across the table. Her shoulders sag in defeat when she realizes they’re decidedly _not_ in his bedroom about to kiss for the first time, and instead, she’s got pumpkin juice running down her front and onto her school books.

Kristoff makes that confused puppy look when he tilts his head and asks, “Are you okay? You were making kind of a weird face.”

He’s so clueless and Anna finds it absolutely endearing.

“Yeah, uh, I was just…thinking about all the work I have to get done before the holidays.”

Not her most convincing lie, but Kristoff must fall for it because he returns his attention to the scroll of parchment in front of him after acknowledging her with a lopsided little smile.

Anna tries to do the same, blotting the damp pages of her book with a napkin, but it’s a futile attempt. Now that the image of Kristoff’s soft lips and warm hands on her body are seared into Anna’s mind she can’t bring herself to focus on anything but that.

Like now, how she’s openly staring at the way the veins in his hands pop where they’re wrapped around his quill and the way his tongue pokes out between his lips in determined concentration.

She should feel bad for being so blatantly obvious, but if she can’t stop the biceps bulge when he throws the quill down and runs his hands through his hair in frustration, then she might as well watch. Besides, she’s not going to see him for two whole weeks over the winter holiday and she needs all the daydreaming material she can get.

But the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that it’s also two weeks without her best friend, the only person whose company she craves more than anyone else. The person she can owl at two in the morning and who will be at her bedroom door in mere minutes. The person who looks out for her even when she insists she doesn’t need it but she really does. The person who makes sure she eats enough during exam weeks because he knows how forgetful she is. The person who picks up on her quirks before she does.

Kristoff is the first person she wants to see in the morning, and the last person she wants to see at night.

She knows she’s being dramatic, after all, they spend every summer apart, and every time Anna gets through it, but this summer made her realize something. The butterflies in her stomach every time she opened one of his hastily scrawled letters and the way her heart nearly burst out of her chest when he spun her around by her waist at the train station in September could only mean one thing; she is undeniably and irrevocably in love with her best friend.

So, yes, she fantasizes about what they could have, but what they have in real life is so much better _because_ it’s real. Her dreams are just that – dreams, and Anna isn’t willing to bet the relationship they’ve built so carefully on a dream.

She doesn’t know how she’s going to survive two weeks without him, _unless_ she doesn’t have to.

“Hey,” Anna prods his parchment scroll with her wand, an idea forming in her head. “Speaking of the holidays, what are you doing for them?”

“Staying here?” Kristoff says hesitantly. “Like I always do? Are you sure you’re okay because I can –”

“Great!” Anna cuts him off in a rush. “I mean, that’s not great – _I’m_ great. You staying here is not great, which is why _youshouldcomehomewithme!”_

“Come home with y – Anna, we already live here!” He leans forward over the table and squints at her burning face suspiciously. “You’re starting to worry me, also, you look really flushed. I think you should get some rest –”

“Stop that!” She bats at the hand now resting on her forehead. “I _mean_ , you should come home with me for the holidays. If you want to, that is.” She adds, second guessing herself.

“Oh.” Kristoff slumps back onto his bench, looking a little stunned. “I’ve never really celebrated the holidays with anyone before.”

“That’s why you should come! It’ll be fun, I swear! We’ll have a huge feast on Christmas and – oh you can meet all of my cousins! They would love you cause you’re so tall –”

“Anna,” He cuts off her rambling slowly, “That sounds wonderful, but have you even asked your parents yet?”

“Well, no – but of course they’ll say yes!”

“I just wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Please, we have so many spare rooms we don’t know what to do with them” Anna reassures him. “Plus, all of my mother’s extended family is visiting, they’ll barely notice one extra person.”

“Okay, but it would still make me feel better if you asked.”

“Of course, Kris.” She knows years of bouncing between orphanages and foster homes has made him feel like a burden for much of his life. That’s why he stays at the castle during the winter holidays. He told her so one night when he was loose and cuddly from the Firewhisky they smuggled from Hogsmeade, and she vowed she would never do anything that would put him in that position again if she could help it. “I’ll Floo them tonight from the common room fireplace, but I’m telling you, they’ll say _yes_.”

“We’ll see,” Kristoff says lightly, but there’s no denying the shy, crooked smile fighting its way onto his face.

He spends the rest of the morning burning a hole through his scroll by staring at it so intensely, but when they pack up their books for class, Anna is pleased to notice it hasn’t gotten any longer.

`````

That night, after her parents have _enthusiastically_ agreed to her proposition and she has sent a hastily scrawled owl to Kristoff’s dorm with the news, Anna curls up next the fireplace with Olaf in her lap, and Elsa’s face poking out of the fire.

“You know, sometimes I forget you don’t live right around the corridor anymore and that you’re off chasing dragons in Romania – or wherever you are now”

“It’s just a light bit of research, Anna.” Elsa rolls her eyes, “besides, soon you’ll be too distracted to even remember I exist!” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively and it makes Anna burn as hot as the fire.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on!” Elsa exclaims, “Inviting him home for Christmas _and_ New Years? You’re kind of obvious.”

Anna crosses her arms and grumbles, “Not to him though.”

“He’s your best friend, Anna. You guys are so in tune with each other that he’s bound to catch on eventually,” Elsa smiles gently at her. “If not, you should just be upfront with him. If there is one thing I know Hufflepuffs, it’s that they’re all adorably oblivious – even to their own feelings! Honeymaren didn’t even realize we were dating until at least our fourth date!”

“You really think so?” Anna asks hopefully.

“I really do. Also, I’ve seen the way he stares at you when he thinks no one is looking. He cares for you so much more than you realize.”

“I see it too, but Kristoff has always been like that so I can’t tell if I’m making it all up.”

“That could be true, but as your older sister I think I’m a bit of an expert in knowing when a boy is in love with you.”

Anna sighs and plays with the fur on Olaf’s back. “I just wish we could talk more. I miss having you so close to me at school.”

“I miss you too, but just because I’m not at Hogwarts doesn’t mean I’m not still there for you.”

“I know, I know.” Anna smiles at her sister through the fire, “Now, will you tell me more about your dragons?”

Elsa’s laugh rings though the Gryffindor common room and she launches into a story about a new breed they’re trying to discover. Anna settles back into an armchair to listen and lets the warmth of the fire and her sister’s voice wash over her.

* * *

On the morning that Anna and Kristoff are scheduled to leave Hogwarts, she meets him in the Hufflepuff common room with her bag in one hand and Floo powder in the other.

He’s only ever used Floo powder for partial transport before, so Anna goes first to demonstrate. It’s not her favorite way to travel; she always gets soot in her eyes and she hates the smell of burning powder, but within seconds she’s stepping out of the ornate brick fireplace in her childhood home.

When Kristoff doesn’t immediately follow her through, Anna begins to worry. She’s paces in front of the fireplace for a few minutes much to her parents amusement when they hear loud thumping coming from the chimney and everyone looks up. Seconds later, Kristoff comes tumbling down, covered in soot and rubbing his head.

There’s a moment of complete stillness in which everyone stares at each other before he drops his bags and Anna exclaims, “Kristoff! You’re alright!” and rushes over.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” He pushes her fussing hands away gently and jokes, “but Anna, I don’t think your fireplace is meant for people as tall as me.”

Behind her, Anna’s father clears his throat amusingly and says, “We’ll have to see to it that problem gets fixed.”

Anna watches as Kristoff tears his eyes upwards and focuses on the source of the voice. Recognition cross his face and his cheeks turn a faint pink.

“Minister Arendelle,” Kristoff tries to bow awkwardly, “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Please, there’s no need to be so formal, Kristoff,” Her father smiles warmly extends his hand towards him for a shake. “At home, I’m just Agnarr.”

“It’s been too long since we last saw you Kristoff.” Anna’s mom pulls him away and into a bear hug. “We’re delighted to have you here, honey.”

Shyly, Kristoff mumbles into the top of her head. “Hi, Mrs. Arendelle.”

“Just Iduna, please.” She pulls away and turns to her daughter. “Anna, why don’t you show him to his room so he can shower all this soot off and change. I put him in the guest room across from yours.”

Anna swears she sees a glint in her mother’s eyes, but she picks up her own bag and shows him the way nonetheless. She leads him up an ornate staircase and through a long hallway lined with at least a dozen bedroom doors and stops when the reach one towards the end. Anna turns to him with a sigh and finds him already staring at her with wide eyes

“When you said you had spare rooms, this is _not_ what I was expecting. This place is huge!” He says in awe.

“Big family, remember?” She shrugs nonchalantly, but a little wave of self-consciousness crashes over her. Is it too much? Will he feel out of place? Does he even _want_ to be here?

“Well, I can’t wait to meet everyone.” He beams and Anna feels her inside melt a little.

She leaves him to shower after checking for injuries one last time and sets her own bag in her room before heading down to the kitchen. She aunts and uncles and cousins slowly begin to trickle in, and she greets them all excitedly.

Anna loves the winter holidays because of how full her house gets. She loves the way people are always bustling in and out of the snow, and how there’s always a fire burning to keep everyone warm. She loves how loud they get at the dinner table, because there’s never a dull moment with her family.

She just hopes Kristoff loves it too.

Anna is in the middle of a hair braiding chain with three of her younger cousins in the kitchen by the time Kristoff arrives back down stairs. He’s dressed in muggle clothes now – which, _wow_ does that t-shirt highlight his arms and chest nicely – and shaking water droplets from his damp hair.

He freezes when he sees the mass of people staring at him, and sends Anna a look that says _help me_ , but she’s a little too preoccupied with his chest to notice.

Then one of her cousins pipes up, “Anna brought a boy home!” and the room jumps into action.

Before Anna can intervene, he gets swept up by one of her aunts, and passed around the kitchen until one by one he meets all of her family members. When he finally gets the chance to sit down, Kristoff looks distressed, and Anna would feel bad if it weren’t for how adorable he looks when flustered.

The downside to all of this is that Anna was sorely mistaken if thought bringing him home meant getting to spend extra time with him. Her family spends the rest of the night captivated by his stories of Hogwarts and Quidditch and Muggle life, and Anna spends the night sulking about how little time she actually gets to see him.

When Elsa finally gets home, she teases her relentlessly for the grumpy look that crosses her face every time one of her aunts pinches his cheeks or ruffles his hair. Anna isn’t fooling anyone when insists it’s just because she doesn’t want Kristoff to feel overwhelmed.

It continues into the next morning, when her mother interrupts their breakfast in the kitchen with a sweet, “Kristoff, dear, do you mind helping me put up the last of the decorations? It’s nice to have someone so tall in the house finally.”

He gives Anna a sheepish smile as he abandons his porridge and their conversation to follow her mother around the house and put up Christmas decorations as she pleases. Anna can’t really complain though; she spends the next hour trailing after them from room to room drooling slightly at the sight of Kristoff’s back and arm muscles straining each time he places a decoration in a particularly difficult to reach spot.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t pipe in with her opinion every once in a while that a piece of tinsel or garland needed to be a little higher or a that one of the colorful lights stringing the ceiling needed to be replaced

When her mother finally relieves him of decoration duties, Kristoff’s shirt is damp and stuck nicely to the contours of his chest. He’s glistening with sweat and Anna has to repeatedly remind herself to close her mouth when he pushes his hair back off his forehead.

Elsa catches her fanning herself when he leaves the room to shower and Anna stomps back to her room grumbling about how, “there’s no privacy in this damn house.”

She’s just barely cooled down enough to leave her room again when she opens the door and comes face to face with Kristoff’s magnificently toned and shirtless back across the hall.

He hears her come out because he turns around and smiles innocently. “I must have left my shirt in the room,” he says nonchalantly, like he hasn’t noticed that Anna’s eyes immediately zeroed in on the loose towel tied low across his hips.

“Uh huh,” Anna nods dumbly, eyes now trained on a single water droplet slowly trailing down Kristoff’s broad chest.

She has an inexplicable urge to lick it.

Instead, Anna gulps and spins slowly on her heels until she’s facing her room again and shuts the door behind her. She lets herself fall backwards onto her bed, wide eyed and thinking about what she would give to be that drop of water. She curses herself for being so ridiculous and rolls over to let out a muffled scream into her pillow.

She only stops when she hears a loud _thump_ on the wall she shares with Elsa’s room.

There’s still an entire day left until Christmas, and then she has to survive through New Years as well and Anna honestly doesn’t know if she can make it with her sanity still intact. Not with him looking like _that_ , all soft and relaxed and innocent like he doesn’t know just how crazy he makes her.

And the thing is, he probably doesn’t know. He’s probably just going about his daily business and Anna is taking advantage of him – _ogling_ him like his chest was built for her personal enjoyment.

And she does enjoy it, quite a bit in fact, but there’s a lingering feeling of guilt attached that makes her feel like a horrible friend for even thinking about him that way.

Despite her guilt, Anna is still very disappointed that she doesn’t see him much leading up to Christmas day. He quickly solidifies himself as part of the family, because every time Anna goes searching for him, he’s chopping vegetables for dinner with her aunts, or fixing some random table leg at her father’s request.

Most of the time, she finds him in the living room, tossing her youngest cousins into the air gleefully, or wrapped up in a large knit blanket, regaling them all with dramatic stories about life as a muggle that Anna knows to be exaggerated for their sake.

And it tugs at her heart for multiple reasons. She loves seeing him so at ease with people he’s never met before. Apart from Anna, Kristoff prefers to be alone, and to see him open up to complete strangers so easily means he _fits_ just right. He’s a natural with the kids and her aunts fight over who gets to pinch his cheeks first in the morning and Kristoff soaks the attention right up.

He belongs here, and that is _everything_ Anna has ever strived to make possible for him since the day they met as first years.

But it also means it’s going to hurt so much more when Anna is forced to face that she can’t go on fantasizing about things that may never happen between them. And she _really_ doesn’t want to think about that if she doesn’t have to.

So, she tries not to. She smiles when her uncles clap him on the back and praise him for keeping up with her. She smiles when her cousins beg Kristoff to pick them up and he makes dramatic faces at her across the room while pretending to strain his back when they jump all over him. She smiles at him with everything she has, and when he beams back, Anna lets it feel real.

* * *

Christmas morning comes and Anna is woken up by the sound of a dozen pairs of feet trampling down the hallway. When she’s sufficiently awake, she follows the smell of hot chocolate down the stairs only to be greeted by Kristoff with a large mug in his hand just for her.

They exchange presents, and from her family Anna gets a variety of quills and her favorite pot of ink, along with some books on apothecary she’s been meaning to read and a new set of robes from her parents. Elsa gifts her a dragon figurine the breathes fire when she taps the tail and says it’s an exact replica of her favorite dragon at work.

From Kristoff, Anna gets a heavy leather-bound journal that she’s been eyeing from Flourish and Botts, and he surprises her by having her name engraved on the front cover. He also hands her a bag that’s _moving_ and Anna opens it suspiciously only to gasp when a chocolate frog jumps out.

He blushes when he tells her that they’re homemade, and how he convinced the house elves that work in Hogwarts kitchen to teach him the recipe because he knows they’re her favorite. When she interrupts his rambling with a kiss on his cheek, Kristoff turns beet red and smiles bashfully.

His thoughtfulness makes Anna a little self-conscious about her gift to him, but he spends the morning showing off to all of her family members the original vintage copy of Quidditch Through the Ages she found for him and her cheeks hurts from trying to hide her grin.

Christmas dinner is a huge affair in the Arendelle house, so the table is lined with endless platters of soup, roast, potatoes, and every sort of savory pie imaginable. After dinner vanishes with a wave of her father’s wand, platters of chocolate eclairs, treacle tart, and ice cream are devoured just as quickly. At the end, Anna feels like she might burst out of her clothes, but Kristoff whispers in her ear he helped her mom make the tart, and Anna loudly asks for seconds just to see the look of pride on his face.

The next few days between Christmas and the New Year pass in a blur. Anna and Kristoff spend their time gorging on leftovers from Christmas dinner and lounging around the house, getting tangled up on the couch and feeling content as can be.

Sure, she still thinks about what his reaction would be is she reached over and intertwined her fingers with his, or if she knocked on his door late at night and curled up under his covers, but Anna refuses to get her hopes up. She’s clinging desperately to whatever it is that lets her have Kristoff like this, and she’s not going to ruin it if she can help it.

If Kristoff sees no issue with the way she rests her head on his chest in front of the fire late at night, then Anna’s not going to be the one who brings it up.

* * *

Eventually, some of the kids find out that Kristoff knows how to play muggle hockey and they drag him out to the frozen lake in the woods behind their house. All they have are some sticks and rocks and a couple cardboard boxes to use a makeshift goals, but Kristoff’s eyes light up at the idea and Anna has to follow.

It’s freezing out, so once everyone gets sufficiently bundled, they trudge through the heavy layer of snow in the woods behind the Arendelle house until they reach the small lake Anna and Elsa used to play in as kids during the summer.

Anna won’t admit it, but the idea of skating terrifies her a little, so she plans to just watch from the sideline, but Kristoff has other ideas. He wraps his cold fingers lightly around her wrist and ignores her demands to let her go with a twinkle in his eye.

“It’ll be fun,” He laughs, slipping his hands into hers and guiding her onto the lake.

“Is this even safe?” She eyes the ice suspiciously. “I don’t know how thick this gets.”

“Hey,” Kristoff straightens up and furrows his brow seriously. “I would _never_ let you fall in,” he says with so much conviction that Anna shivers, and not from the cold. “Besides, who’s the Gryffindor here? Aren’t you supposed to be the brave one?”

“Well, yes, but this is different –”

“No buts, just be brave.” He says as he leads her onto the middle of the lake.

He pries his fingers out of her death grip and Anna braces herself because for one terrifying moment it feels like she’s falling. However, when her eyes pry open, she’s still standing and Kristoff has a smug look on his face.

The kids find hockey absolutely riveting. Kristoff teaches them all how to hold their sticks, but when he gets to Anna he wraps strong his arms around her from behind and lets his hands linger on hers just long enough to make her flustered.

Since he’s is the expert, Kristoff lets the entire Arendelle family play against him. Anna is their designated goalie, so she guards their box while the kids all team up on Kristoff at the other end of the lake. He doesn’t exactly go easy on them, but it’s one of the reasons why the kids love him so much already.

After about half an hour of the kids futile attempts to score on Kristoff, Anna’s team has made a depressing two points total, both of which she has a sneaky suspicion he let in on purpose. Kristoff on the other hand, has skated past the kids and scored against Anna a whopping sixteen times, and she’s starting to give up hope.

Nevertheless, it’s amazing to see him in his element like this. Anna knew he was athletic because of Quidditch, but the way his body moves on the ice is a whole different story. He skates around the kids – who are watching him in awe – almost effortlessly and under all those layers, Anna can see the way his muscles twist with every turn.

She would like to admire his muscles without _any_ layers on, but she shakes that though out of her head. They’re here to play with the kids.

Miraculously, Anna blocks one of his shots a few minutes later and the kids erupt into cheers. Surprise crosses Kristoff’s face but Anna blinks and the look is replaced by one of pure pride.

“I did it!”

“You did it!”

And then he’s skating towards her and shaking her gently by the shoulders, but his feet get tangled with hers and Anna loses her footing on the ice. She braces herself to go flying, but a strong arm yanks her forwards and rather than hard ice, she lands on something warm and cushion-y.

 _Just like a pillow,_ Anna thinks, and then her eyes fly wide open as sirens start going off in her head because Kristoff’s face is inches away, and their warm breaths are mingling in the cold air, and his lips are _right there._

And of course, even though he’s taken the brunt of the fall, his eyes are flickering all across her face to make sure she’s not hurt.

Anna definitely doesn’t feel cold anymore when he looks at her that way, in fact, every single nerve in her body is fired up and telling her to close the distance between them.

 _I’m the Gryffindor,_ Anna reminds herself, focusing on his warm brown eyes. _I’m the brave one_. She’s so close she can smell the cinnamon tea from this morning on his breath. _If I really want this, I have to go get it_. His eyelashes are heavy with snow and his nose is pink from the cold. Her eyes flicker to his parted lips, and _oh_ how soft they look. _Just be brave_. He looks so open and vulnerable and Anna swears she sees him nod almost imperceptibly, but it’s enough to give her the surge of confidence she needs to _finally_ lean down and –

“Kristoff, Anna! We made a goal!”

– roll sideways off his chest with a groan.

She swears under her breath and hears Kristoff grunt besides her as he struggles to pick himself off the ice. He towers over her and offers a hand that Anna gratefully takes, but even after she’s steadied herself, Kristoff doesn’t let go.

Her eyes fly upwards to meet his and Anna’s heart nearly breaks when she sees the pained look on his face. He reaches up with his free hand and to brush the snow from her bangs and cups her cheek with the shaky hand. Even in the freezing cold, his hand radiates warmth through her face and Anna can’t stop herself from leaning in to his touch.

His eyes search hers desperately, and when he whispers her name, it get lost in the whistling wind, but Anna has spent so long staring at his lips that she knows the shape of her name on them by heart.

Anna busies herself with adjusting the scarf around his neck to distract herself from the pounding in her chest, and whispers firmly, “Not in front of the kids, Kristoff.”

He seems to agree, because his shoulders sag and he gives her a weak smile, but before he can let go, Anna squeezes his hand with everything she’s got and it feels a little bit like a promise.

They try to resume their earlier game, but Anna can tell Kristoff is distracted by the number of goals he accidentally lets through, so she announces kids that it is time to go home and warm up by the fire with some hot chocolate. He smiles gratefully at her across their makeshift rink. After a series of groans and one promise of extra whipped cream later, the kids scramble off the ice and bolt towards the house, leaving them behind on the lake.

Anna does her best to shuffle towards land, but Kristoff skates over with practiced ease and takes her hand gently to guide her instead. When they make it to solid ground, she intertwines their fingers with a private little smile and this time he doesn’t let go again until they reach the house.

* * *

If Anna had thought the past few days of unresolved tension were bad, nothing could have prepared her for what came next.

It seems like every chance he gets, Kristoff uses some excuse to touch her.

In the kitchen he rests a hand on her shoulder and lets it linger for _just_ long enough to make heat pool in Anna’s cheeks, and when he pulls away, he makes sure to brush his fingers along the sensitive skin of her neck. At the dinner table, he sits too close to her and lets their arms brush every time he reaches for his water glass. At night, when they’re brushing their teeth side by side in the bathroom, his fingers skim the bare stretch of skin on her lower back exposed by her small t-shirt on his way to grab the towel behind her. In the morning, he hands her a cup of her favorite hot chocolate and makes pointed eye contact with her when he lets her fingers rest over his own before he lets go of the mug.

If she was lucky, he would wipe a smudge of chocolate from the corner of her mouth and let his hand linger on her cheek like that day on the lake.

Each brush of fingers feels like Kristoff is burning his touch into her skin permanently, and by New Year’s Eve, Anna’s whole body is on fire.

She’s also giddy with anticipation because she’s decided that this is the day. She’s going to be brave and she’s going to tell him everything that’s been building up in her head and her heart for a long as she can remember and she’s going to seal it all off with a kiss. And because she’s with Kristoff, Anna knows it will be perfect.

At dinner, the adults announce that they’ll be going to the Leaky Cauldron to celebrate the New Year, and Anna and Kristoff are in charge of watching the kids and getting them to bed on time. It shouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that Kristoff disappears to his room as soon as dinner is over without a word of explanation.

She gets the kids to bed by ten without much fuss, so that’s not an issue, but the longer Kristoff stays away, the more anxious Anna gets that she may have made the whole thing up in her head.

She tries drinking hot chocolate to calm her nerves, after all, New Year’s Eve doesn’t _really_ mean anything. She tries to tell herself that she doesn’t kiss him tonight, it’s fine, she doesn’t need anything special when he’s already special enough.

She’s nursing her second cup and pacing her room listing all the reasons why they should just be friends when a sound in the hallway makes her freeze.

Then the floor boards creak with heavy footsteps outside of her room.

A knock at her door, and then a pause. Anna throws herself in the middle of the bed

“Can I come in?”

“It’s open.”

Kristoff peaks through the door and when his eyes land on her sitting criss cross on the bed, he steps inside fully and closes the door behind him.

The first thing Anna notices is how soft he looks. His hair is fluffed up like he’s been tugging at it nervously, and he’s wearing an old pair of her father’s pajama pants that are just a few inches too short for him. He looks shy – nothing like the confident, handsy person he’s been the past few days, and everything like the scared boy she remembers from their sorting ceremony.

He’s nervous, but he’s _here_.

“I’ve never been in your room,” Kristoff rocks back and forth on his heels by the doorway, “It suits you.”

The walls are bright pink and green and Anna suddenly feels very self-conscious about her taste in design as a five-year-old. There’s an embarrassingly large poster of an old wizard boy band on one wall and she itches to tear it down before he can judge her.

“I was a bit of a wild child.”

“Like you aren’t still?” Kristoff fires back immediately, and a little bit of his normal demeanor shines through the nerves.

“Is there something wrong with that?” She demands and he laughs softly, shaking his head.

 _Just be brave, Anna._ “Do you want to sit?” She pats the soft bedding next to her, and Kristoff stumbles over his feet in his haste to join her.

He sits on the edge of her bed and rubs the back of his neck anxiously. “Um, I haven’t gotten the chance to say thank you, yet. For letting me come home with you. I haven’t felt this happy around the holidays in a long time and it has everything to you with you and your family.”

“First of all, I didn’t _let_ you do anything, Kris. I want you to be here, we all do.”

“Then thank you for wanting me here,” He says solemnly. “There’s also something else I want to say and I think you know what it is, but I still need to tell you in person.”

He grabs her hands and waits for her to nod, and then takes a deep breath. “I wanted to do this at midnight because, you know, tradition – and I wanted to make it special for you too because I know you like stuff like that, so I’m sorry if this isn’t what you wanted – but I honestly think if I waited any longer I would never work up the nerve again.” He pauses to take another deep breath, this one shakier than the last, but his voice is strong when he asks, “Can I just show you what I mean?”

Anna barely has time to whisper, _“yes,”_ before he cradles her face with both of his hands and Kristoff’s lips finally, _finally_ capture hers in the kiss she’s been aching for all this time. It’s awkward at first, because Anna forgets to breath and their teeth knock uncomfortably, but then Kristoff slides one hand around the back of her head and tilts her to the right, and everything slides into place.

Kissing him, Anna thinks, feels like the first time she held her wand as an eleven-year-old witch. No sparks fly, but she feels the same rush of warmth that makes her fingers tingle and her heart pound and the word _destiny_ plays on a loop in her head.

It’s funny, how she’s spent all this time imagining what it would be like to finally kiss him, but she never once thought about how warm his lips would be against hers. He’s soft and gentle with her at first but pushes against her with just the right enough pressure to make Anna dizzy. He tries to break away, but she follows him with her lips and a hungry whine in the back of her throat.

Of course, he knows her limits better than she does, and when he gently pulls her off him, she’s fighting to catch her breath.

“Woah there, feisty pants,” he tries to tease her with an old nickname, but his words get caught in his throat and it sounds like the wind has been knocked out of him too.

In between breaths, Anna smiles sheepishly and says, “Whoops.”

Kristoff gives her a contemplating look, then licks his lips and hums, “You taste like chocolate.”

“I’m on my second cup today,” Anna tries to say nonchalantly, but her breathless giggle gives her away.

He glances to the mug on the nightstand and back to her face, “Really? You only do that when you’re –” He cuts off abruptly and glances between her and the mug again before a flip switches and his eyes light up with pride. “I made you that nervous, huh?”

Anna swats at his chest. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Hey! You can’t hit me after I just spilled all my feelings to you!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, would you like me to kiss it better?”

He pretends to contemplate her off seriously for a moment, and Anna rolls her eyes impatiently. “Hmm, I guess that might work.”

So, she leans towards his chest slowly to make a show of it, and as much as Anna would love to get her mouth all over him, she diverts at the last second and recaptures his lips in hers. She catches him off guard, and he falls back onto her bed and Anna takes her opportunity to climb on his lap without ever breaking away.

His hands fly to her waist and Anna sighs happily into his mouth at how steadily they hold her in place. The warmth of his body against hers make the rest of the world melt away until all she can focus on is the slow, almost rhythmic movement of his lips against hers.

But the feel of his hands and his body _everywhere_ quickly overloads Anna’s brain so much that she’s the one who breaks away first this time. Kristoff lets go of her and pushes himself up on his elbows, while Anna rolls off his lap and onto the bed next to him.

He looks down at her. “Too much?”

She giggles breathlessly. “Just right.”

“Okay, just right.”

And as Kristoff lays back down, Anna fumbles to find his hand on the bed next to her. Her hand is shaking, but when Kristoff slides his steady fingers between her own, Anna feels her heart rate begin to slow.

It makes sense, she thinks; he has this indescribable ability to put her at ease even in the worst of situations, so why wouldn’t he be able to do the same in the best of situations?

And boy, is this the _best._

They sit there in blissful silence until the sky outside Anna’s window begins to flash red and green with wand sparks. The clock on her bedstand flashes midnight, and Anna turns to find Kristoff already staring at her with warm open eyes. He leans down to kiss her soft and slow, and Anna melts under his touch.

Anna knows Kristoff is still the same sensitive and sweet boy he’s always been to her, but at the same time, there’s something so new and exhilarating about having him in her arms like this.

She swears with every fiber of her being that she’ll never waste another moment of her precious time with him again. Now that he’s opened this side of himself up to her, Anna vows that she’ll memorize every little quirk and quality that she never could before.

When he leans back and smiles radiantly at her, Anna soaks in the way his eyelashes brush gently across his cheeks and the way his eyes crinkle like that up close, and she knows she’s well on her way to making that resolution come true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there, it's me again! I'm sorry I turned Elsa into Charlie Weasley, my fingers slipped and it just happened. Also, it'll probably be mostly fluff from here on out, but if there is anything you would like to see, let me know!


	6. Sixth Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on!” She whines, “You were just saying we needed somewhere private and then this door appeared and now you’re trying to tell me it’s not a sign?”
> 
> “A sign that Hogwarts,” he waves pointedly at the castle walls around them, “has a secret snogging chamber for its students?”
> 
> Anna huffs and crosses her arms, “Well it sounds so crass when you say it like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! I hope this doesn't seem too rushed or choppy, and I apologize if there are any typos, I've been busy with work and school and moving, so it took me a while to get this done. If you're still reading, thank you so much, I would not be motivated to write if it weren't for your support and kind words.

Being Anna’s boyfriend is surprisingly a lot like being her best friend.

He still gets two a.m. owls begging for his attention and she still barges into his room unannounced, although his suitemates have long given up begging her to knock for their sake.

He still walks her to the Gryffindor common room after class and she still saves a spot for him in the Great Hall at dinner when Quidditch practice runs late.

He still daydreams about her in class and she still patiently teaches him the material he misses because he should have been focusing on Potions instead.

But a lot have things have changed since they began dating, and it took Kristoff some time to get used to those changes.

For one, he had to come to terms with how fiercely he loves Anna.

He had accepted the fact that he loved her long before they started dating, but once everything became real, he was overcome with the feeling of _how would I survive without her?_

It scares him at first how his heart swells at the sight of her. How he dreams about running his hands through her hair and breathing in the flowery scent of her shampoo. How he aches to lay his head in her lap and fall asleep to the sound of her voice every night. How years of moving between orphanages and fosters home means that he’s never had a stable home, except now he’s found one in Anna and he would give everything to settle there for the rest of his life, no matter where she takes him.

It nearly drives Kristoff crazy how desperately he clings to her in the first month of their relationship. Anna knows him better than he knows himself though, and she demands to what’s wrong before he even realizes how strange he’s acting.

She slowly opens him up and together they realize that Kristoff is worried that the way she feels for him now is fleeting, just like everything else in his life until he met her, and that he craves so deeply for her to be permanent.

Kristoff is on the verge of tears when Anna kisses him deeply and tells him she loves him for the first time and swears on her heart that the only way he’ll ever be without her is if he leaves first. Kristoff melts in her arms and feels like he can finally relax for the first time in their relationship.

Still, he spends the summer before their sixth year in a haze just trying to get by without her. He carries her letters with him everywhere he goes, until the scent of her perfume finally fades from the parchment and he has to wait restlessly for the next one to arrive.

But when she throws herself into his arms at the train station and wraps her legs around his waist, all the noise and commotion around him, and the fuzziness in Kristoff’s head fades away until they’re the only people on the platform and all he can smell and feel and see and hear and taste is _Anna._

But the best change of all is that now when Anna drags him into empty classrooms and abandoned corridors, they get into a whole new kind of mischief that involves a lot more snogging and a lot less clothes than they’re used to.

When they get caught – which they almost always do - they get house points taken away _and_ detention, which should bother Kristoff more, but he’s content to scrap cauldrons all weekend if it means he gets to spend more time with Anna while doing it.

The sixth time they get too carried away in the empty Charms classroom, Kristoff and Anna think they’ve managed to get away with it until they get back to the Gryffindor common room after curfew with disheveled hair and untucked jumpers and swollen lips only to find Professor Yelana waiting for them with a stern look on her face.

Kristoff gets Saturday detentions for a month, but he remembers the way Anna’s impatient hands had felt under his jumper and he secretly thinks the punishment is worth it.

The next time they almost get caught is when they find the Room of Requirement.

They’ve missed curfew again and they’re breathlessly outrunning a very irate Professor Weselton when they find themselves in secluded seventh floor corridor.

Between giggles, Anna points her wand at the end of the corridor and whispers, “ _Muffliato_ ,” so they can talk in private and gasps out, “That was a close one!”

Kristoff braces himself against the wall. “For such a small man,” he pauses to breathe deeply, “he runs unbelievably fast.”

“Did you see the way he flew over that banister? He was like an agile…peacock.”

“Do you think he saw us come up here? I really can’t afford to miss another Quidditch practice if we get caught again.”

“I think we lost him by Prefect’s bathroom on the fifth floor.”

Kristoff frowns and begins to pace the corridor. “That’s not good enough. We need a place to meet where we won’t get caught.” He sighs heavily and runs his hands through his hair. “We need a place where we won’t get caught. How about –”

“How about there?”

Kristoff stops pacing and turns to her. “Where?”

“The door that just appeared behind you.”

“What door?”

“The door behind you!” She throws her arms in the air exasperatedly

“There is no door behind me.” Kristoff furrows his brow and spins around. “I don’t know – oh.” He freezes and Anna makes a triumphant _ha!_ from behind him. “There is a door behind me.”

And not just any door. On the wall Kristoff _swears_ was bare just moments ago is a _massive,_ ornate, wrought iron door surrounded by equally detailed stone trim.

Anna comes behind him and rest her hands on his shoulders. She stands on the tips of her toes and peeks over his left shoulder to whisper in his ear. “Do you think it’s a trap?”

He stares at the door, dumbstruck. “I don’t … know?”

Anna pushes down on his shoulders to get a better look. “Well I think we should go in it.”

He shakes her off and turns around to find her eyes burning with curiosity. “You want to go in the creepy magical door that randomly appeared the in creepiest abandoned hallway in this castle?”

“Come on!” She whines, “You were _just_ saying we needed somewhere private and then this door appeared and now you’re trying to tell me it’s not a sign?”

“A sign that Hogwarts,” he waves pointedly at the castle walls around them, “has a secret snogging chamber for its students?”

Anna huffs and crosses her arms, “Well it sounds so crass when you say it like that.”

Kristoff watches the blush crawl up Anna’s cheeks at his implications and he can’t stop himself from teasing her further.

“I’m just saying what you really mean.”

Anna slaps him. “That is _not_ what I meant and you know it.”

“Ow!” Kristoff glares at her and rubs at his bicep. “Well even if it was a secret snogging chamber I wouldn’t want to go in it with someone so violent.”

A look of worry momentarily flickers across Anna’s face, but then Kristoff is grinning wildly and she’s rolling her eyes and shoving him away gently.

“You’re insufferable, Kristoff Bjorgman.”

“You love it though.”

Anna grows silent, and Kristoff worries that he’s taken the teasing too far, but when he dares a glance down, she’s gazing at him with something fierce in her eyes.

“I do love you.”

And he can’t really tease her for that, now can he?

What Kristoff _does_ do, is take a deliberate step forward to crowd Anna into the wall behind them. He towers over her, and her eyes brighten with interest as she hungrily licks her still swollen lips.

He thanks Godric that he came to his senses last year, because the way she’s looking at him right now – with fire in her eyes and a wicked grin – would drive him crazy if he wasn’t allowed to touch her the way he wants to so badly.

He raises a large hand that nearly cups her entire face and sweeps a gentle thumb over her soft freckled cheek. He loves her _so much_ and his heart still pounds when he thinks about kissing her and Kristoff swears he’ll never get over the feeling of holding her in his arms, so he leans down to show her just how crazy she makes him.

Then, the deep sound of “ _Mr. Bjorgman!”_ echoes from around the corner.

Kristoff freezes mid-lean because that is definitely _not_ the shrill but distinct voice that belongs to Professor Weselton, and although Anna insists that Professor Yelana is _‘actually really soft_ ’ on the inside, Kristoff is not afraid to openly admit that the Gryffindor Head of House scares the living dead out of him.

Kristoff looks at Anna with fear in his eyes and then at the ornate door waiting patiently behind them, and back at Anna – who nods frantically – and then they’re scrambling across the corridor for the handle and Kristoff is tripping over her heels in his haste to push her into the room.

For such a heavy door, it fortunately clicks into place quietly, and all of the ornate features melt into the wall with a gentle ripple, leaving no trace that a secret room exists behind these stone walls.

Kristoff steps forward and runs an awestruck hand across the barren wall and breathily whispers, _“woah.”_

He’s running his fingers gently through the cracks in the stone when Anna’s strangled voice breaks him out of his daze.

“Kristoff? Come here.”

The tone of her voice makes him remember why he didn’t want to come here in the first place. He braces himself to turn and find Anna being held hostage by some three headed dog or giant spider – because only Godric knows what they could be hiding in this castle, after all, they _are_ in a disappearing chamber – but instead finds her standing in the center of a disappointingly empty room.

She looks back at him with an absolutely distraught look on her face and only then does Kristoff notice that the room is empty _except_ for a single, king-sized bed covered in traditional, red and gold linens.

He’s baffled as to why Anna looks so distressed when it dawns on him why they’re even in this place to begin with.

They were getting a little carried away in the Potions storeroom when Kristoff backed Anna up into one of the shelves a bit too roughly, causing some of the glass jars above their heads to teeter off the edge and shatter on the floor. Anna must have forgotten to cast a muffling charm amidst her haste to loosen his tie, because a few moments later they heard Weselton’s shrill cries rapidly approaching their hiding spot.

They outran him up _six_ flights of stairs until they skidded to a halt in this seventh-floor corridor. Then Kristoff had paced the hallway wracking his brain for a more secluded place to snog his girlfriend, and this magical door appeared leading to a secret room with only a bed inside which must mean –

“Hogwarts has a secret snogging chamber!”

And they end up quickly putting the room to good use.

* * *

The next night, Kristoff hears a faint _tap tap tap_ at the window of his dorm. When he opens it, Anna’s snowy owl – Marshmallow – flies into the room and drops a small, tightly rolled scroll of parchment onto his bed before perching on the wooden frame.

Kristoff reaches for the scroll while eyeing the owl suspiciously. Anna had kissed him goodnight after dinner and abandoned him in the Great Hall with a mischievous smile on her face. He hadn’t seen her all day, so he was a little disappointed, but he figured that she was probably tired after a long day of N.E.W.T level classes.

Kristoff doesn’t know what he expects to find when he unravels the scroll, but it was definitely not this.

In the middle of the parchment, the words _‘SSC 10:30’_ are written in her familiar, loopy script.

Kristoff knows immediately what she’s referring too, and a shiver runs down his spine when he remembers how bold Anna had gotten the night before without the fear of getting caught looming over them anymore.

Marshmallow nips at his finger – which, _ow_ , draws blood - and Kristoff swears under his breath before reaching into the bottom of Sven’s cage on the floor and tossing a dead mouse at the bird.

Marshmallow crunches away with happy hoots, and Kristoff nurses his finger grumpily, but he fails to catch a few droplets of blood that land on the scroll in his hand.

He curses again and sets the note down so as not to get any more blood on it, and rummages through the drawer in his nightstand for a bandage or a cloth or –

He notices something out of the corner of his eye and freezes, blood dripping into a pool on his nightstand. He sticks his finger in his mouth – a choice he immediately regrets as the taste of copper flows onto his tongue – but Kristoff is more preoccupied with the words magically appearing on Anna’s scroll where his blood has soaked into the parchment.

There are only a couple of spots, and he can’t make out what the blood soaked letters say, but there is no way those letters where there before he started bleeding onto the page, which either means that Anna has written him some sort of invisible note, or he’s hallucinating from the blood loss.

Like an idiot, he contemplates bleeding over the entire page to reveal her message, but he realizes just how much parchment there actually is and just the thought is enough to make him dizzy.

Then he remembers how Anna used to write notes in his Potions textbook with invisible ink when he was on the brink of failing his exams. He thanks Godric for blessing him with such a wickedly brilliant girlfriend who taught him the exact spell he needs for this moment, and blindly reaches for the wand on his bed.

When his fingers wrap around smooth wood, Kristoff waves at the note and mutters, “ _Aparecium_ ,” around the finger in his mouth and watches in awe as ink bleeds onto the previously empty parchment.

It reads:

_To my dearest Kris,_

_I thought about you in Herbology today. We were pruning mandrakes for first year Potions and it reminded me of the time you fainted when we were that age. We had just pulled the mandrake roots out and I said something to you (which I dearly wish I remembered so I could tell you now) and you were so eager to hear me that you pulled your earmuffs right off and promptly fainted from the screaming!_

_I never told you that I followed you all the way to the Hospital Wing in tears because I thought I must have killed you on accident. Madam Gerda insisted I was being ridiculous and forbid me from sleeping on the cot next to you all night, so you never even knew I was there, but I swear I fretted all night wondering if you were going to hate me before our friendship could even really begin._

_I think you were a little intimidated by how intense I was at first, but you were also so small and cute and so eager to please me all the time that I couldn’t help but follow you around like I did. Nothing has changed since._

_See you tonight. Yours, Anna_

Yours, Anna.

_Yours, Anna_.

If he wasn’t already madly in love with her, Kristoff thinks this would have sealed the deal.

He reads and re-reads the letter – bleeding hand long forgotten - written in Anna’s familiar script: flowy and pretty and full of love – just like her.

He remembers that day so very clearly. It was early in the year and they weren’t exactly best friends yet, so, not only had he made a fool of himself in front of the entire class of first year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, but also the one person whose attention he craved more than anything else.

He vaguely remembers hearing her voice as he was slipping in and out of consciousness in the hospital wing, but when she wasn’t there when he awakened, Kristoff convinced himself that he had been imagining it.

But of course, even then, she was always looking out for him.

His heart clenches when he thinks about how clueless he was back then, because when he looks back now, it’s so obvious how much he loved her, even if he was too young to be _in_ love yet.

He lets her words wash over him until he’s committed them to memory, after which he digs under his bed for an empty box that used to hold his dress robes. It’s plain enough that no one would have any reason to search its contents, and he holds her letter close to his heart one last time before putting it in the box and shoving it back under his bed for safe keeping.

The next night, and the next and the next, Anna sends him a note with only their meeting time scrawled across the top, and every night, Kristoff whispers “ _Aparecium,_ ” in the privacy of his room watches as another one of Anna’s little love notes materializes on the page.

And it becomes part of their routine.

Within a few weeks, the box under Kristoff’s bed is filled with dozens of letters meant for his eyes only. Some of them are sweet little memories like the first, and some of them are doodles that she charms to move – like the drawing of her holding on tight to his waist as he flies them over the castle on his broomstick.

Some of them are sweet poems that bring tears to Kristoff’s eyes, and some of them make him blush violently at the explicit mentions of what she has planned for him that night.

With every note he gets, Kristoff traces his fingers over the exaggerated loops in the way she writes certain letters and breathes in the faint smell of her perfume that clings to the parchment like the way her scent clings to his robes after they spend a night together.

He worries that Anna might think he doesn’t appreciate her efforts when he doesn’t write her notes back, but he’s never been the eloquent one in their relationship, and she tells him that she much rather he _show_ her how he feels instead of tell her.

And he becomes _very_ good at showing her.

* * *

Eventually, they figure out that Hogwarts doesn’t _actually_ have a magical Secret Snogging Chamber – as they’ve continued to call it even though they’ve done much more than snog in there.

Their nightly meetings in the room have long become routine when Kristoff seeks it out alone one afternoon.

He’s just stormed out of Potions class because his Draught of Living Death turned a sickly green color instead of lilac (for the fifth time!) after he added the Infusion of Wormwood, and he needs somewhere to let his frustration and panic pass in private.

He really doesn’t know how he made it into the N.E.W.T level Potions class, because it seems like every chance that Kristoff gets, he manages to embarrass himself by screwing up “the easiest” potions, as Professor Weselton puts it. Although Kristoff would hardly say any N.E.W.T level potion is _easy._

It just takes him longer than the others to grasp Potions, he thinks bitterly, while pacing the empty corridor waiting for the door to appear. But that doesn’t even bother him as much as the disdainful look on Weselton’s face and the way he scoffs at Kristoff when his potions start smoking or turn rock solid in the cauldron.

The readings don’t help him nearly as much as actual practice does, and he just wishes he had somewhere to practice outside of class, because he can’t really break into the Potions dungeon outside of class hours since he’s one more detention away from getting suspended. He would rather fail than get a letter sent home to his _muggle_ foster parents who haven’t got a clue that magic exists.

Luckily, the door materializes right as Kristoff is about to scream in frustration, and he pushes through – expecting to throw himself on the bed and sulk until his next class – and he freezes at the sight in front of him.

The room is smaller than it usually is, but it’s absolutely filled to the brim with every single Potions ingredient and equipment that Kristoff could possibly imagine. One wall is solely dedicated to dozens of Potions textbooks and all their different editions. Another one is lined with shelves that hold more ingredients that the Potions storeroom itself.

There are Sopophorous beans, Valerian roots, and Sloth brains, as well as powdered root of Asphodel and an infusion of Wormwood, which means that Kristoff has everything he needs to make a Draught of Living Death, along with all the privacy and time in the world to get it right.

There’s a single table with a small fire burning under a bubbling cauldron, and Kristoff runs his hand across the table top in awe, thinking about how excited Anna is going to be once she finds out what their room can really do.

_Anna. He has to tell Anna._

Kristoff all but sprints from the seventh floor down to the Hufflepuff common room in the dungeons, praying that the room will be the same when gets back, and taps frantically on the owl cage by his bed where Sven is fast asleep.

He hastily scrawls out the message - _secret snogging chamber, NOW –_ on a scrap of parchment, and pleads to Sven, “find Anna,” before sending him out the window and taking the stairs two steps at a time until he’s back in the secret seventh-floor corridor.

Kristoff is giddy with excitement by the time she finally steps through the door.

“Are we really doing this right now?” Anna whispers excitedly and shuts the door with her back to Kristoff. She shoves her robes to the ground and says excitedly, “I’ve only got twenty minutes before Transfiguration starts so we’ve got to make this –”

Anna turns and freezes with her sweater pulled halfway off her head.

“– quick.”

Her jaw drops and her arms fall limply to her sides as she looks at the scene in front of her in utter confusion.

“You turned our room into the Potions dungeon?” She whines and Kristoff has to laugh at the disappointed tone of her voice.

“It was like this when I came!”

“Does that mean no more…” she looks pained and gestures to her half-dressed appearance, “…you know…”

“Well, there’s a table right there,” He gestures behind himself and steps towards Anna who looks scandalized at the thought, “but I could always conjure a bed if that would make you more comfortable.”

“I am not having sex with you on a _table_ ,” she splutters, “when there are _literal eyeballs_ watching us!” She gestures wildly at jars on the shelves to her right.

“Alright, alright,” he rolls his eyes but laughs jokingly, “I’ll move the eyeballs.”

“Kristoff Bjorgman!”

“Hey, okay!” He holds his hands up placatingly,” I don’t actually think our room is gone forever. I was outside wishing that I had somewhere to practice potions and when the door appeared, this was inside.”

Anna pauses thoughtfully. “So…you asked and the room listened?”

“Mhm,” He nods excitedly and takes her hands, “and I think that’s what happened the first time too. Remember we were thinking about a private place to meet when it first appeared for us?”

“That’s right,” Anna’s face brightens with realization, “we were!”

“All we have to do is ask and it’ll give us whatever we need.”

* * *

Anna is so intrigued by the idea of such an endless room that she spends multiple late nights in the restricted section of the library looking for answers.

She sends Marshmallow to him with a note a few nights later telling him to meet her in the room, and drops an ancient looking book on the bed in front of him when he arrives. She flips to a page and reads triumphantly:

_“The Room of Requirement, also known as the Come and Go room, only appears when a person has real need of it, and is always equipped for the seeker’s needs.”_

Kristoff thinks it’s a little odd that Hogwarts has deemed their desire to snog in private a, “real need,” but he’s also thankful because they end up using it for so much more than that.

With Anna’s help and weeks of hard work, Kristoff finally catches up in Potions, and he passes his midterms with flying colors. He does so well that Weselton even goes to Headmaster Pabbie to report him for cheating, but when he doesn’t have any proof, the Headmaster personally congratulates Kristoff on doing so well, and dismisses a spluttering Weselton from his office without another word.

They spend many lazy afternoons in the Room of Requirement. Kristoff loves to watch her work when he should be focusing on his own readings, and when she catches him staring, Anna rolls her eyes gently and clambers out of her chair to join him on the couch that first appeared in the room a couple months after they found it.

He falls asleep to the sweet sound of her voice and the soothing feeling of her fingers in his hair, and whenever Anna craves more of his attention than usual, he curls his body around hers tightly and breathes in the flowery scent of her shampoo and feels the tension leave her body under his careful touch.

Some nights, they never even make it to the room. The intensity of their N.E.W.T level classes picks up in the spring, which forces Anna and Kristoff to abandon the hideaway in favor of long, restless nights in the library.

On those nights, Kristoff carefully pulls the box the box out from under his bed, and reads her tender words until his eyes start to blur with a mixture of happy tears and exhaustion.

But of course, Kristoff’s favorite nights in the room are the ones where Anna falls apart under his gentle touch and melts into the comfort and safety of his arms like she belongs there.

She teaches him how she likes to be held and touched and loved, and Kristoff, ever the enthusiastic learner, becomes an expert in all things Anna likes in no time at all.

He quickly learns how brave Anna _really_ is, and how disappointingly inflexible he is.

And although Anna will deny it, they do end up using the table for _much_ more than making potions.

* * *

Time moves slower in the Room of Requirement.

When they lay tangled in the sheets together for hours on end, he realizes that being Anna’s boyfriend is much different than being her best friend.

For one, now he gets to be both, which is better than anything he could have ever imagined back then.

But despite this realization, Kristoff knows one thing will always remain the same: he falls in love with Anna a little bit more every day, and every day he spends with her feels a little bit like he’s finally found a home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for 4.5k words of Kristoff being love sick lol. I told y'all he was soft in this fic.


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